


Against Fate

by AnnettePoudre



Category: Sofia the First (Cartoon)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-09
Updated: 2019-02-05
Packaged: 2019-06-24 10:49:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 15
Words: 41,478
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15629142
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnnettePoudre/pseuds/AnnettePoudre
Summary: Dark!AU Cedfia: When Sofia finds out the true meaning of her amulet, she begins to find out other truths about the sorcerer who seems obsessed with privacy. As she gets closer to figuring out the reclusive Cedric in her father's employ, things begin falling apart. Can she piece things back together before things are too late? Or will chasing the magic of her amulet tear Enchancia apart?





	1. Prologue: A Promise, A Prophecy.

**Author's Note:**

> I had this work written for a long time but saw how many problems Cedfia shippers get and delayed on posting it. I was inspired a bit by the Wishing Well episode where the Well reminds King Roland of a wish he made that he did not discuss, which made me wonder what role magic really played in Enchancia. Characters will be OOC at times, and there will be plenty of discussion on magic that is definitely not how Disney would want it. This work is complete (around 90,000 words) and will be posting it as regularly as I can edit it.

It was dark, and the only sound in the barn was her muffled sobs. 

“Princess,” his voice was harsh “Calm yourself!”

She shifted in the hay, trying to face her companion. “I’m scared.”

“Whose idea was it to have a  _ sleep out _ for her birthday?” She felt him move closer to her, his body was warm, the night was not.

She sniffed and closed her eyes, not that it made a difference. She felt like he could see her in the dark, perhaps he could, he was a mage after all. “Jade & Ruby said that they do it in the village all the time, it sounded fun. Can’t you...I don’t know...magic us out?”

“I’m bound as you are,” A sigh and he shifted again in the hay. She finally felt the velvet of his robes brush against her face, she took comfort in his nearness “your father is going to kill me once he finds us.”

She tried to pull her wrists apart and made a little squeak of frustration, he hushed her. “Do not make too much of a commotion, we don’t know what else is in the dark.”

Her breathing stopped, and fear threatened to swallow her up completely. She squirmed closer to him still, her nose bumped into his chest and she heard his breath catch. He was so  _ warm _ . She felt instantly at ease, at least she wasn’t alone, even if she was with the most hated person in the castle: the royal sorcerer.

It was not even a half hour ago that they were all warm around a conjured fire, watching him draw pictures in the sky with light as she ate warm biscuits with her two best friends. Now she wasn’t even sure if they were safe. Her sobs came up anew, whose idea  _ was  _ it to sneak off to the woods and have a sleep out?

“We had them at my uncle’s house! They’re so much fun Sofia!” Ruby's voice echoed in her head.

“And we just...we sleep outside? It sounds exciting!” She had replied, and could kick herself, what part of being surrounded by shadows sounded exciting?

“Well, we don’t sleep much, we tell spooky stories around a fire!” Ruby had laughed and nudged Jade who was reading beside them “Jade must know a ton!”

Jade had looked at them both severely, and she wished that she would have taken that look as a warning, but she ignored it! How stupid could she be? Now she was going to die in the dark with a man that already wished her dead on a daily basis. She breathed in his scent, he smelled like the woods, pushing down the feeling of dread that washed over her.

A few more minutes of self loathing passed before she spoke “Um, Mister Cedric,” She breathed, worried that the darkness would hear her. She felt him move, his chin hitting the crown of her head. She winced, it was tender from where they knocked her out. “Can’t you, I heard that-”

“Out with it.” He sounded angry and she recoiled from him.

“Well, James says mages can see in the dark, can you maybe, see if we’re alone?”

“I can’t see in the dark, and your brother is a royal idiot.” Cedric shifted closer to her and now she was pressed against him “He also told you I have sharp teeth to eat little girls, and bat wings to fly up to your window at night.”

She felt a familiar flush of embarrassment, James loved to scare her about Cedric, it was because she often tried to seek the royal sorcerer out, for tricks and homework help when her tutors weren't enough. It was because of this that Cedric hated her. It was because of this that she often bested James in all of their classes together.

The wind blew through the cracks of the barn, and she felt her dress flutter around her bound ankles and she winced. Afraid someone was grabbing her, she curled up tightly in a ball, squeezing her eyes tight.

Cedric made a hushing noise, and she felt him squirm against her again, his weight shifting in the hay as he tested his bindings. “Okay,” he said after a few more seconds “It is not what I thought it was, turn over Princess.”

When she didn’t move, he said her name, barely above a whisper, frustration evident “Sofia, please.”

Sofia bit her lip and rolled over, wondering what he was going to do to her, maybe he had gotten annoyed by her presence as he usually did and was trying to send her away from him, even in this barn. She heard him shift and lost contact with him, feeling the loss of his heat keenly. She shivered.

His fingers found hers, gentle touches for calloused fingers as they felt around in the dark for the palms of her hand and then for her wrists, tied tightly with a rope. “Clumsy,” Cedric yanked on her wrists roughly and she hissed as her arms were pulled back into a painful position. Suddenly, her hands were free.

“How do I-”  
  
“Quiet.” He hissed “Pay attention to my actions, and I suggest you do the same.”

She squeezed her hands together and realized that Cedric thought they might not be alone in the barn. Sofia bent forward a little more, and felt around for the same knot. She had no idea how to undo knots. Panic rose inside of her and she began to try and feel the whole binding, trying to frantically search her memories for something about knot tying and untying.

Cedric read her mind. “Feel for the loop,” he hissed “and pull.”

Her index finger curled around a loop and she yanked it upwards with everything she had, her wrists hurt from the binding, making it painful to move, but she clenched her teeth and pulled.

The knot came undone easily, his hands flying apart, the rope unwinding like a whip, slapping against her. He turned over quickly, grabbing her and pulling her against him.

“Don’t move.”

“What? Mister Ced-”

“What is all this commotion about?” A deep voice called in the dark.

Cedric put his hand out, she felt the flutter of fabric, and then a heavy thud.

Her legs were untied and she uncovered her eyes and saw nothing. They were still in darkness, Cedric heaved her up to a sitting position, his arm securely around her waist.

“Oh, very well done, another wand?” This voice was familiar, this voice was the kidnapper, the one who told Cedric to leave and forget her. The one that knocked her unconscious with one heavy blow of his fist.

She shivered, Cedric’s fingers pressed tightly into her side. He was going to kill them both.

“I never was an idiot.” Cedric sounded calm next to her despite his vicelike grip on her. “Leave, I will forget this, as will the Princess.”

A bark of laughter came from the dark.

“I will!” She insisted to the voice she could not see “I don’t want anyone to be hurt. I just would like to go home.”

“No, I cannot forget, I cannot forget what your father did to us, neither should you Cedric, but then, you did turn yourself over readily.”

“And I saved your life in the process!” Cedric was tense beside her and she shifted uncomfortably, who was this man? The sorcerer’s voice lowered again. “You’re a fool, take the Princess’ kindness and leave, take your men with you.”

“Yes, please.” Sofia insisted, trying to back up Cedric’s plan as best as she could. He was usually right about her History homework. He was probably right here as well.

“Princess Sofia is too valuable to our cause! We could fix everything! We could right the wrongs of war, surely-”

“Princess Sofia cannot bring back the dead, let her go. If it is blood you want, mine should suffice.”

“No,” She shrieked, afraid that anyone was going to get hurt “No, just tell me, I will speak to my father, let us both leave and we will convince him of anything.” Her voice choked up and a sob escaped her “Please let me go home!” She wailed.

A hand struck her roughly, sending her back into the hay. “Quiet!” The darkness called, her face burned with tears, her mouth tasted like copper.

She felt Cedric grab for her, his fingers swiping against her arm, but suddenly she was yanked away by her hair. It felt like it was all going to come out at once. Her hands flew above her head, grabbing the hands, hoping to lessen the pain. She was screaming, her voice deadened by the hay of the barn.

“Let her go! Let her go dammit Gavin, I don’t want to do this.” Cedric was desperate, his words came out in a slurry “Please!”

“The rites, if we perform the rites.” He sounded angry, impatient,  _ mad _ . “They will have to give it back to us. I feel it even now.”

“No!” Cedric’s voice was furious. “Let go of her now!”

“Cedric!” She cried and she was tossed to the ground her skull bouncing off the dirt floor, she saw stars.

“It has to be now, it has to! Cedric help me!” The voice, she assumed was named Gavin, spoke above her.

“I cannot,” Cedric’s voice was grave “I cannot.”

A flash of blinding light and there was a stabbing pain in her arm followed by a clatter. She was going to die, she was dying. She could feel her hair getting wet. The darkness felt heavy. A flicker of light, followed by thousands.

She was laying in the middle of a circle carved into the dirt. A man’s back to her as he lay in a pile of liquid, and standing in a pile of hay, completely covered in the deep red liquid, was the royal sorcerer, his wand outstretched, his eyes haunted as he looked past her. His hand was shaking.

She looked down and saw a gash on her arm, and a dagger with a vine curling up the blade lying beside her. Realization dawned and she turned over slowly, her eyes wide with fright as she waited for confirmation of her greatest fears.

The man who kidnapped her had black hair like Cedric’s his eyes stared through her unblinking, blood poured from the gash on his chest, staining his brown clothing black. Sofia couldn’t breathe, she couldn’t move. He was dead. He was dead.

The barn began to smell of smoke and she sat up quickly, the world spinning, her arm and her head throbbed, blood seeping down her sleeve. “Mister Cedric,” she said trying to stand up but instead falling over as the world tilted and went dark abruptly. “Mister Cedric they’re dead, oh god they’re dead.”

Cedric was frozen in place, his whole body shaking, his wand outstretched, pointing towards where someone used to be. He had killed them, oh god he had killed them. Fear and revulsion fought with adrenaline as the barn became smoky around them. She stood up again, shaking her head to try and rid her vision of the darkness, she felt blood trickle down the back of her neck and fought to ignore that too.

She grabbed his other hand and pulled “Please, Mister Cedric, please, we must go!” She yanked him and he seemed to follow her mindlessly, out of the barn and into the field.

She didn’t recognize where they were, but she did recognize the fire that was consuming the back of the barn, peeking around the sides, lighting up the night. It reminded her of the bonfire with her friends, it reminded her of how this whole night started.

She sat in the grass, dizziness overtook her again and she laid down, trying to get the world to stop swaying so madly.

Cedric sheathed his wand and sat down next to her, watching the barn go up in flames. His breathing was labored, and would hitch every so often.

She rolled over on her side, her hand covering her wound to stop the bleeding. It was in the firelight that she saw him, shivering as she had.

“Did you know him? You knew his name.”

“He was my friend, he was my only friend.” Cedric said thickly “and now he is nothing.”

Sofia closed her eyes and felt the familiar sting of tears. Her next words came out hoarsely “I promise, I promise on everything that I can promise, that you’ll never have to kill someone for me again.”

Cedric looked at her, his eyes slightly surprised, before he turned back to the burning barn. “I promise I will never kill someone in front of you again.” A pause “Go to sleep, the cavalry will be here soon.”

She closed her eyes, but she found out that every time she did, the hands would grab for her again in the darkness, pulling her away, pulling her away to kill her. She contented herself in watching the way the fire reflected in Cedric’s eyes, letting her hand rest near his, the warmth of his presence giving her peace as they waited for the villagers to notice the light of the fire, as they waited for the knights and guards to come to their rescue.

* * *

 

Her proper party was the next day, and she did not get much sleep, she put her hair up gingerly, her scalp still hurt from the night before. Sofia didn’t want help, she didn’t want people touching her. She had sworn off a few handmaidens, her sister, and even her mother, instead getting dressed by herself, in loose clothing because she could not get her corset done by herself, her hair, half down, half up, in a loose braid.

“Sofia, it is good that people are required to attend.” Amber, her elder sister said as they walked towards the throne room “If they saw you like this, surely no one would arrive.”

Sofia gingerly prodded at the cut near her hairline, hoping that it was covered by the hair she piled over it. She had bruises most everywhere, her head was still throbbing, and her arm was bandaged up so thickly you could see it through her gown. “I don’t want to postpone this party on my account.”

“Sofia, it’s  _ your _ party after all, if you want to postpone it, you should! You should always be able to enjoy a party.” Her brother joined them at the top of the stairs, looking every bit of a Prince that he was.

“No,” she heard the band begin to tune itself downstairs “No, I’m fine, I just won’t dance much.”

Sofia sat gingerly in her seat, earning a concerned look from her mother, Sofia shook her head gave her a smile.

“Let the festivities begin!” Her father said giving her a smile in return, and people began to flood the throne room.

It was a parade of the richest of the rich, a sea of gilded fabrics and beautiful people, they came with false smiles and bright eyes as their gazes were drawn to the front of the room where the royal family sat. 

However, just as the band was beginning the first waltz, a number of gasps and the sea parted for one woman who made her own music when she walked. She sounded like a bag of gold, each stride clinked and jingled as she came to the front. The woman looked older than even the head maid, her gait was fast despite her hunched over back. Her eyes were dark as night and her hair was black and grey.

“Princess Sofia,” The gypsy addressed her with a voice that sounded like smoke. “A terrible curse has been bestowed upon you.”

The room went quiet, even her heart stopped beating to listen.

The gypsy spoke again. “You have been cursed on this your eleventh birthday. I am here to tell you your end.”

Her father was not amused, she saw him summon for the guards out of the corner of her eyes, Sofia shifted uncomfortably in her seat. She didn’t know how to respond to this.

“When the elder spell is cast, a terrible fate will come to pass. This is your fate, I have seen it.”

She sat frozen to her seat, there was a deafening silence in the throne room. The gypsy clad in rich browns and golds raised her eyebrow at the princess.

Her father started laughing, and the rest of the court followed suit, even her sister’s high pitched laughter rang in her ears. She couldn’t laugh.

“What do you mean?” It was drowned out, the only one who seemed to notice was the boy to her immediate left.

“It’s a joke Sofia.” Her brother smiled reassuringly, but she didn’t feel reassured.

“A joke? About my life?” She stood angrily.

“Now, now Sofia.” Her father’s voice signaled an end to the laughter and the gypsy looked pleased. “It seems that the guards got gypsy and  _ jester _ confused.”

“She doesn’t look like a jester to me!” Sofia began down the stairs to demand an explanation but the gypsy took two steps back with every step Sofia made forward.

“With those clothes,” her older sister said boredly “how could you mistake her for anything but a jester? That fashion is laughable.”

Sofia turned back to her royal family who now sat high above where she stood. “Father, I wi-”

“Yes, I agree, guards.” A flick of the wrist and four men began to advance from the shadows.

The gypsy turned in a flourish, unseen jewelry clinking as she walked out of the hall. “What king does not listen to his people? What King does not listen to his daughter’s prophecy?” 

“Wait!” Sofia picked up the hem of her dress and followed the nattering old gypsy out of the castle. The guards moved towards them, but with a stern look from the youngest princess they stood at attention.

Knights bowed as they walked down the stairs and out onto the lawn. The gypsy still muttering curses under her breath. “Please don’t go, I need to understand.”

“I can tell when I am not wanted, Princess Sofia.” Her raspy voice said holding up her hand. “Remember my words, only that stone can protect you from your own fate.”

Sofia's hands flew up to her amulet that her father had gifted her when she was still young, and as soon as her fingers grasped around the cold stone, the gypsy was gone in a flash of light. Sofia stood before a pile of rags that once had been an old woman. The air smelled of stale tobacco and dried flowers. “Wait.” She exhaled, but there was no one left.

Sofia stroked her amulet and heard laughter. She knew that laughter, she had heard it so many times before.

“Mister Cedric,” She knew that laugh “Did you hear her?”

The royal sorcerer, no more than another jester to her father, was watching her with distaste as she held the stone close to her chest. His robes were a deep purple that melted into the sky. His face was thin and gaunt and caught the light always at a harsh angle.

“Gypsies will say  _ anything _ to get to you Princess, that is their job, and only foolish little girls will believe them.”

She frowned and squeezed the smooth stone tighter in frustration. “Why? Who would do that?”

“People looking for money from naive royals.”

“I’m not naive!” 

“And who is clutching the stone at the behest of some passing con artist? Not I.” A smile crept upon the wizard’s face and he withdrew the wand from his sleeve. "If you're so worried, let's get rid of it, shall we?”

“Sofia, you’re safe!” Her brother, James, came bounding down the steps. “and Cedric!”

A frown, from both of them. “And Cedric.” drawled the man near the stairs.

“What do you have there? That old lady didn’t say anything weird did she?” Her brother stepped closer to her and tried to see what was in her fist.

“Nothing!” Sofia smiled and her eyes darted over towards Cedric who opened and then closed his mouth “it’s just cold out, that’s all.”

“Right! Oh, and Cedric,” the prince straightened his posture and puffed out his chest “my father requests your presence in the throne room.”

“No doubt for another  _ party trick. _ ”

“It is the Princess’ party after all!” James said proudly.

Sofia walked faster in front of both of them, hiding her amulet beneath her dress. It was her birthday after all. She would make the most of it. There were voices in the hall and she realized it was her father speaking to the guards.

“Find the gypsy who upset Princess Sofia and have her taken care of, I don’t want to see your faces back in the castle until it's done.” Her father’s voice was low, and she felt heat against her back, looking up, she saw Cedric waiting.

“Sir, she disappeared.” A guard protested.

“You’ll disappear.” Her father stressed “Along with the fool that let a wretched gypsy into the castle in the first place.”

A pause. “Yes, your majesty.”

Cedric took her by the arm and steered her away roughly, pushing her back to where they came, taking the long route back to her birthday. By the time she returned to the ballroom the party had resumed without her. A stunning waltz was taking up most of the dance floor and even her parents had joined in on the fun.

However no matter how many waltzes, and no matter how many cakes she tasted that evening, her mind was elsewhere. Cedric did another magical display of floating candles that wowed everyone but her.

“Princess,” he called as the candles swirled, a lake of fire above their heads. “Does this not amuse you?”

Her eyes looked upwards and she nodded “Mister Cedric, as usual, you are phenomenal!”

“I am glad that the greatest sorcerer in the land can be  _ amusing _ to you princess.”

Later that night, she sat in her bed turning the smooth stone over and over in her hands, the candle light caught different facets each time, and she wondered if the words really had been true.

“When the elder spell is cast, a terrible fate will come to pass.” She repeated, it sounded so stupid and gimmicky when she thought about what Cedric said. Maybe she really was a con artist.

However, it stuck to her. She sighed angrily and hit her pillow. That felt good. “I’m not naive, I’m not foolish, and I don’t have a terrible fate!”


	2. Two Parties, Two Pleas.

“But why?” Sofia’s voice took on the same high pitched whine as her sister when she didn’t get her way. She was eighteen now, but she was sure her mother believed she was eight.

“Where are they with tea?” Her mother turned back to her, long brown hair swished with her pale gold dress. “I just don't feel comfortable sending you for a sleep over with a family that is, well, not very well accepted in society.”

“That’s not very nice to say mama! She’s one of our subjects.” Sofia huffed.

The conversation was interrupted by one of the servants serving them afternoon tea in the gardens, and the way things were going, the conversation was over as well. Her mother sipped tea and smiled at her over the rim, her eyes were soft. Sofia squirmed in her seat trying to control her anger.

“Sofia,” her mother admonished finally setting her cup down. “You are a royal, and Lucinda and her mother are not the kind of people that you should feel safe around! I am not blind to what goes on in our Kingdom, Marla is always hexing people, Lucinda is much of the same, and goodness knows what other kinds of people hang around them. You're eighteen now, you should know better.” 

So, her mother realized she was eighteen after all. Sofia concentrated on the blue china that was elegantly displayed in the gardens this afternoon. It matched the lilies that were now in full bloom. “Amber and James are thinking of the family! It’s one night and it’ll just be me and her, mom, no others. You know me.”

“No one?” Her mother looked skeptical. “Sofia you have never lied before, but a woman of your age is going to a sleepover with just  _ one _ girl?”

Sofia nodded furiously. “Please mom, I don’t often ha-”

Her mother sighed “Unless I give you permission you won’t be quiet on this will you?”

“No!” She said excitedly, knowing that she was close to getting her way.

“Tonight only, and then you will  _ never _ ask again.”

A squeal and the table rattled, tea sloshing over the sides of the porcelain cup. “Careful!” 

“Sorry mama!” Sofia was up and halfway back to the castle to prepare. 

The sprawling gardens were a blur as the youngest princess rushed to pack for her sleepover tonight. She held her dress up as to not trip over it, and  She narrowly avoided one of the servants with the second course of tea and felt an arm yank her out of the way.

“Careful princess,” drawled a voice next to her.

“Mister Cedric!” The black cloud of the castle stuck out amongst the gardens. When everything was color, he was darkness. He looked like he had just tasted a lemon, his lips were a small tight line.

“Yes, that is me.” He looked out over the floral gardens and she noticed dark circles under his eyes “Where is your father?”

Sofia stepped back and tried to see what he was seeing. She wondered if sorcerers saw differently than normal people. She had met a few that came to the castle, but they never seemed to be as angry and dour as Cedric. When sorcerers visited it was usually with accompanying royals. “He wasn’t out in the gardens with me and mom.”

She heard him curse under his breath, and then he turned his attentions back on her. He was a head taller than she was and every time he looked at her, he looked down. He opened his mouth to say something, but she cut him off.

“Walk with me back to the castle?” She implored “Perhaps we can find father there!”

She was convinced that the reason that Cedric was always dour was because no one talked to him but to order him around. A good princess sees value in all of her subjects, and Cedric was one of her subjects. 

“I do not need an escort, Princess.” He practically spat her title out and Sofia rolled her eyes. Perhaps there were other reasons that Cedric was so nasty.

“Well, I  _ do _ .” She said starting back up towards the castle on top of the hill. 

He cursed her name under his breath and she pretended not to hear it, but even despite his cursing, he followed the young princess back up the hill. They were tenuous friends at best, and she thought that it was only because she actually looked at him as something more than a wand. She saw his mind when she needed help with her lessons, and she saw his power when she needed help with everything else. Fixing broken toys, broken bones, broken spirits when she failed to understand why royal visitors never seemed to visit  _ her. _

“Princess,” he said as they passed the castle doors into the cool cavernous hall. “I will take my leave.”

“Wait!” She said turning back to him and she saw his retreating form freeze. She realized she didn’t know why she had told him to stop, just that she didn’t want him to go just quite yet. “Have a good day Mister Cedric.”

“Thank you for your gracious platitudes princess.” He replied and continued down the hall to his workshop.

She bit her lip at his insult and balling her hands into fists and stormed down the empty hall. Since the night of her party he had lost all of his warmth, Cedric was always cold to her. She thought he didn’t deserve her niceties sometimes, but being princess meant doing things that weren’t worth doing sometimes, including being nice to a nasty old sorcerer. 

“So you won’t be here tonight?” Her brother asked watching her pack a few dresses and gowns. “Where are you going?”

“Lucinda’s house!” She sang as she thumbed through a few dresses hanging in her closet.

“Lucinda? That weirdo?” She could hear the disapproval in his voice “You know what people say about her family. They say those gypsies will curse you as soon as they see you! It’s a good thing father got rid of most of them when he did.”

Sofia looked over her shoulder at her blonde brother who was inspecting her vanity, his fingers running over a jeweled necklace as he inspected himself in the mirror. “You know what people say about you, right James?”

Her brother was a few years older than her, and currently in line to be king. James knew this, and gloated over both of them as often as he possibly could. “Most handsome bachelor in the kingdom? Benevolent fun loving single man, looking for his  _ princess _ ?” He turned and gave her a toothy smile that would make other women faint, but she had seen this act since childhood.

“Selfish and narcissistic bachelor, in love with his own reflection more than any passing princess.” Sofia mused, taking a purple gown out of her closet.

“Who wouldn’t be in love with this?” He turned back to the mirror “You’re lucky you’re not cursed with my looks Sofia.”

“A terrible fate to be sure,” Sofia said tossing her final gown into her bag, her breath catching in her throat as she remembered  _ her _ terrible fate.

It haunted her, it so often bubbled up to the surface long after everyone else had forgotten, and when she mentioned it to anyone they laughed. Her chest tightened remembering the words and her hands always absentmindedly came to her neck, touching the stone for reassurance. The gypsy was wrong, but it couldn’t hurt right? Extra  _ extra _ protected.

James dropped one of her rings and it caught her attention. “Oops, you know me, Sofia, always a clutz.”

She glanced sideways and knew he had done it on purpose because she wasn’t paying attention to him. Boys will be boys. “Yeah, well, pick it up then.”

“Sofia, I don’t like you going off with this Lucinda girl tonight.”

“You’re not my dad, James, I already got permission to sleep over.”

“Yes but did mother know _where_ Lucinda lives? Deep in the forest?”

She frowned. Sofia had carefully left that out of her negotiations for a sleepover. If James didn’t get his way, he would out her, and she would never get to ask another witch about the prophecy the gypsy had mentioned. Sofia shut the deep burgundy bag she had been packing, crossing the straps over to hold it shut.

“What do you want then?” She snapped, her patience thinning. A princess always had infinite patience, but the prince was infinitely more annoying.

His tone took on a wheedling whine that he often used with their parents. “Prince Hugo is having a party this weekend you know, and I was invited.”

A party, it was always a party. She let out a long suffering sigh, and realized what he wanted. She would be in attendance as the alibi. Princess Sofia was not a partier, and so when the Prince took her somewhere, their parents knew it wasn’t going to be rowdy. Trying to summon any patience she had left, any goodwill that was buried deep inside of her, she looked at James who was fixing his hair in the mirror.

“Fine.”

“Thanks Sofia, I’ll let mom and dad know” He was out of the room in a flash, slamming the bedroom doors behind her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'll see what kind of reception this gets before posting many more chapters. Hopefully good?


	3. A Mystery, A Model

Lucinda was a great deal shorter than her, a great deal paler than her, and a great deal thinner than her. Her house smelled like spices and herbs and her mother, a thin woman with skin stretched tight around her bones, looked like a spitting image of her daughter, down to the straight inky black hair.

The coachman had looked nervous dropping off royalty in the middle of the forest. However, while it was dark and foreboding outside, the inside of the tiny cottage was warm and welcoming, a fire crackled in the corner, a few cats purred contentedly in front of it, and Lucinda, who looked thrilled to have a royal princess in her cabin was talking excitedly about the party that James was invited to.

“You royals are so popular! I can’t believe you get to go!” Lucinda squealed and her mother looked up from the book she had been reading. Lucinda withered under her gaze. “Sorry mom.”

Sofia was finishing her biscuit and shot a look at Lucinda “You know I don’t like those parties, it’s so loud and no one likes me because I'd rather not get into trouble, they like Amber and James! I’m just an alibi.”

“Yes but you still get to  _ go _ .” Lucinda sighed “and Prince Hugo always throws the most amazing events. If people like Amber and James, they like  _ you _ . You’re cool by association!”

She looked over at the fire briefly before returning her attentions back on her friend. ”Yes, well, I’m sure I’ll make new friends there, I mean, if so many people are going, there’s bound to be some new people!” A polite lie. Princesses were always polite.

Lucinda squealed and earned herself another glare from her mother. “If you’re popular and going to a popular kids party, you know what that means?  _ I’m _ popular by being your friend!”

“Life’s not about popularity all the time Lucinda.” Her mother, Marla, interrupted, the cottage was too small for private conversations “It’s about being smart and resourceful.”

“Yes mother.” Lucinda replied dully.

Lucinda was subject to flights of fancy more than other girls and that’s what Sofia liked about her the best. She was always positive and like her cottage, Lucinda was warm. She had met Lucinda when she was a child, drawn to her magic, her talent for making her feel as if she wasn't the odd one out as the royals that Amber liked to hang out with were apt to do. There was something that drew Sofia to Lucy. A string of fate, it was like they were meant to be friends.

Lucinda went on and on about what she would do if she was invited to such a glamorous event, and what kind of dress she would conjure if she could only be invited. Sofia couldn’t help but smile at her enthusiasm. It was intoxicating. The conversation was cut short when Lucinda’s mother shut the heavy book she had been reading and smiled at the two of them. “It’s late young ladies, bed time!”

Sofia looked to see that the fire had reduced to embers and candles had somehow been lit during the conversation, her biscuits forgotten, and her tea cold. “Where should I change?” The princess asked eying the cottage for a small bathroom or even just a separate room.

“We’re all girls here,” Marla waved at her from the chair near the fire “Change in a corner, there won’t be much light left soon. The fire is almost gone.”

Sofia felt a pang of embarrassment realizing she would have to change in front of others, but turned towards the wall and began to strip out of her voluminous dress and into the purple sleeping gown that she had favored recently.

It melted into the sky, just like Cedric’s had on the night of her prophecy. Her eyes widened in shock at her fond memories of the castle sorcerer and shoved it from her mind. She simply liked the color, not the man wearing it. Purple was very becoming, especially for a royal.

“You should wear that color more often,” Lucinda said “maybe even to the  _ party _ on Saturday!”

Sofia tugged her long reddish brown hair out from underneath the dress and began to plait it before bed. “Maybe, I don’t think I have anything but a sleeping gown in  _this_ purple. No seamstress could do something in two days.”

Lucinda huffed, her good idea ruined by practicality and rushed over to the small wooden cot on the far side of the room nearest the fire. “I think you would look stunning.”

“I think so too Lucy.” Sofia said following her to the bed that they would share.

Lucinda’s bed was warm, like her, but no matter how warm the bed was, she couldn’t fall asleep far away from her own room. There was a whine of hinges and a clatter as the heavy wooden door to the cottage opened and shut.

Her heart began to race uncomfortably. Now was the time to ask Marla about the prophecy. Hopefully she would be more helpful than Cedric on the manner.

Marla was striking in the pale light. She seemed to be checking on some plants, a long pipe in her hand glowing red as she inhaled. “Shouldn’t you be sleeping?” She asked, her back towards Sofia in the doorway. 

A wind picked up and so did her gown, Sofia pushed it down with her nerves. “I have something to ask of you.”

“A hex perhaps? A love potion?” Lucinda’s mother took another long drag from the pipe and blew a cloud of smoke into the sky. She laughed. “Don’t tell me you believe the rumors that go around the village.”

“What rumors?” Sofia took a few steps towards the woman at the edge of the garden.

“What’s it to you?”

“I’m a princess, I need to know everything that goes on in the kingdom!” Sofia tried to muster up a royal air but it fell short.

Marla looked back over her shoulder at the eighteen year old girl standing in her overgrown garden. Lucinda might have black eyes but Marla had green eyes that reminded her of a cat. Sofia narrowed her eyes and crossed her arms over her chest.

“Fine, ask your question  _ princess _ .” She said the title with the same distaste as Cedric. Anger bubbled to the surface, but she pushed it down.

“What does this stone really mean?” Sofia asked pulling out her amulet.

There was a rush of heat, and Sofia wondered if it was embarrassment that had crept up out of nowhere. She averted her eyes and tried to convince herself there was nothing to be embarrassed about. Her scholars told her there were no stupid questions. The moonlight made the stone glow and Marla looked surprised but then schooled her expression into boredom. Sofia was insistent.

“You know! Tell me.” Sofia shook her hand and the amulet swung on the silver chain.

The witch recoiled as if burnt. “I am not obliged to tell anything to you, little girl, just because you are friends with my daughter does not make you a friend of mine.”

“You would hide secrets from the princess?”

“I did not pledge my allegiance to your father, do not use that against me.” Marla gestured to the amulet and Sofia suddenly felt protective of it and clutched it in her hand.

“Who did you pledge allegiance to then? If you live in this kingdom you-”

“Have you ever wondered... _ princess _ , why your father has a sorcerer in his employ instead of your father  _ being _ a sorcerer?” Marla turned back away from her, a long drag from a long pipe.

“No,” shot back Sofia quickly, her mouth moving faster than her mind “Who wouldn’t serve their king?”

“And why is your father king?”

“Because....” oh, that was a difficult question “Because his father was, our whole family has ruled over this land for generations!”

“It’s late, and Lucinda will wonder where her friend has gone. Keep that stone and your business far away from me, princess.” Marla turned over the pipe and ash fell out onto the ground “or you’ll find my hospitality less than  _ royal _ .”

Sofia couldn’t sleep for the rest of the night, afraid that after her questioning Lucinda’s mother would kill her, steal the amulet, or both. She had begged her mother to allow her to come here so she could get answers, but now Sofia just had more questions.   
  


* * *

She arrived back at the castle after breakfast, and bid hello to her parents before setting off to meet someone who would have answers. Sofia bit her lip as she walked down one of the less used corridors of the castle. Her nerves on high alert but her face determined. Lucinda’s mother had given her questions, and there was only one man who would answer them.

“Mister Cedric?” She called into the heavy wood door.

A bang, a caw of a raven, and then a few choice words and the door was opened “Princess Sofia, to what do I owe this  _ pleasure _ ?”

She smiled hopefully and slid into the small workspace, the room was filled with a purplish haze which was quickly banished out the window. 

“Do you know Lucinda’s mom?” She said taking a seat at his workbench and Wormwood fluttered his wings and cursed in irritation. She pretended not to hear him.

“Please take a seat,” he said closing his book and shooting her an irritated glance, and then all of the potions mess that was on his desk vanished in a flash of light. “Lucinda who?”

A huff in frustration, he was playing stupid. She knew he knew. “The village witch! Marla!”

“Don’t be stupid Princess.”

Sofia tried not to let him get to her, this was always his way of weaseling out of a conversation with her. She smiled politely “If I’m stupid, educate me.”

“You have a sorcerer in your castle, and you’re afraid of some village hag?” He asked incredulously, shoving his wand back up his sleeve. His black hair reminded him of Lucinda’s mom, limp and straight, it clung to his sharp features.

“I asked her about this,” she motioned towards the necklace that was hidden beneath her dress. “and she told me to keep it away from her.”

Cedric leaned against the wall furthest away from the Princess and regarded her for a minute. “Only fools think rocks have special powers,” he finally concluded.

“But your stick has powers!” She pointed to his sleeve “Why not a rock?”

“It’s not a  _ stick _ , Princess.” He reached for it and pulled it back out, it was well crafted birch with intricate swirls and engravings up the length of the wood. “It’s a wand.”

“Then this might not be a rock right?” She reached down the collar of her dress and yanked out her amulet. He had the decency to look away “Why won’t you just look at it?” She unhooked it from her neck and held it out to him.

“I’m not going to deign that with an answer.” He said pushing himself off the wall, beginning to pace “It’s been seven years Princess, you’re eighteen now, you have come of age, and shouldn’t believe in tall tales, stop asking questions and enjoy your pretty bauble.”

A pang of desperation flooded through her and she looked down at the amulet that was in her hand. She squeezed it tighter, remembering the things the witch had said “Why do you work for my Dad?”

He froze. “That is how things are princess. I am a royal sorcerer, and you are a royal.”

That wasn’t how it always was, Cedric just showed up one day when she was about ten years old, but she had a feeling he had been around longer than that. He was skittish and strange, he did not speak much, and he never made eye contact. He knew the castle well, and used to jump at the smallest of sounds. She still didn’t know  _ where _ he came from, only that he was there, and no one offered her any explanation to the contrary.

“Do you like being a royal sorcerer?” She looked around his cramped work room, kept in a wing far away from the rest of them. Universally despised by the entire staff and family, on beck and call of everyone who needed both amusement and easy fixes. Could anyone like being a royal sorcerer when things were like this? She sighed “Dumb question.”

“Princess,” it sounded almost pleading instead of his usual bored drawl, his eyes looked wild. It was the first time she had seen any emotion from the castle sorcerer “Do not ask any questions you do not wish to have answered. Some secrets are better left unsaid.”

There was a pregnant pause in the room and she licked her lips to say something but instead there was a bang on the door that made them both jump. Her amulet fell to the floor and he eyed it warily, but grabbed the chain and held it out for her, looking away. “You waste my time, Princess.”

She felt the same heat of embarrassment flood her, why was she always doing stupid things lately? When she did stupid things around Cedric she felt like an insignificant child. 

“Sorry, Mister Cedric.” She grabbed the chain from him and yanked on it, hiding the amulet behind her back.

“Cedric! What in the blazes...why is the door locked?” It was her father’s rich baritone and in two swishes of his wand there was a floating model of the constellations and the door latch came undone.

“Ah, it was just jammed” He said opening the door easily “Oh! Sofia, what are you doing in here?”

“Just learning about the stars with Mister Cedric! You know how much I adore them.” She gestured to the sky. Princesses didn’t lie to kings. She looked over at the sorcerer nervously who seemed to be concentrating on the model he just tossed up in the air.

“Right, well, education is very important for a princess but next time I would rather you do it in the library where I can see you. Not alone with Cedric.”

“I do-”

“I agree, this is no place for a Princess.” Cedric added with a hard edge to his voice.

Sofia looked over at him strangely, he had just covered for her, but now he wished to be rid of her? What was Cedric playing at? But he didn’t seem to be upset, just his usual apathy. She hopped off the stool she had been sitting on and crossed the room to the door, to her father who shooed her out, closing the heavy wood door behind her.

She tried to stay and listen, but the guards were watching her curiously and so she left with her questions still unanswered and a growing concern for the royal sorcerer. The witch had a point, if Cedric could construct such an expansive model of the heavens in just a swish of his wand, why  _ wasn’t _ he king? He didn’t like serving them. He didn’t even like them!

“Don’t ask questions you don’t want the answer to.” She repeated his words heading straight for the next best place for questions “I’ll just find the answer myself.” She said pushing the doors open to the library.

She was buried beneath a pile of books that only reminded her how easy it was to ask a royal advisor, or Cedric for an answer rather than slog through hundred of uninteresting pages. No books on rocks detailed  _ her  _ rock, and she was getting frustrated. Opalescent and glows under moonlight sounded rare enough to her! Why wasn’t there a great big book on magical stones or something? She flipped through the pages of  _ “Rocks and Where to Find Them.”  _ without even bothering to glance at the descriptions.

“Princess Sofia?” called a voice from the door and she looked up to see her father’s royal advisor peering into the library. 

“In here Baileywick!” 

Prim and proper, always well dressed, grey haired bespectacled Baileywick was always where you needed him and always had an answer. However when it came to her amulet, he told her to stop being foolish. Sofia slammed the book and quickly moved away from where she was reading. No need for anyone to find out.

“What were you doing in the library, Princess?” He asked gesturing to where she had been sitting.

Her mind went back to Cedric “Stars, just learning about stars.”

“Ah yes, well, lunch is served.” He began to lead her back out of the library “I heard that you went to stay with a village girl last night? In the woods? How brave.”

“It wasn’t brave, Baileywick, she’s my friend! Her house was nice! It was like being in my own room.”

“Except that room was her house,” laughed Amber as she joined them in the hallway “Really Sofia, do you have to slum around the village? Why didn’t you bring her here to sleep in the castle?”

“Not everything about the village is bad, Amber,” Sofia said pushing ahead of them and shoving the doors open, two palace guards surprised that the Princess hadn’t waited for them pushed them open the rest of the way. “I came from the village, you know!”

“Ah yes,” her mother called from the table “Did you have fun at your sleepover?”

“Yes, thank you.”

“You have a busy week this week, Sofia,” Her father smiled as the first course “a sleepover and you’ve invited James and Amber to a party on Friday?”

A bowl of soup was placed before her and Cedric entered late as usual “I...ah,” her train of thought was lost as the dour sorcerer took a seat across from her “Yes, a party.”

“Well it’s good,” her father continued “you need to hang out more with your siblings. Family is all you have Sofia!”

For some reason her eyes wandered away from her father and onto Cedric who was staring down at the bowl of tomato bisque. He looked up to meet her gaze and her heart stopped. He knew something, she could feel it. He knew something about the amulet. The same something Marla knew.

“Yes, father.” She said absently.

Cedric looked away first, and she studied her soup before beginning to eat. What was he playing at? Why did he make her feel uncomfortable? She closed her eyes and pushed those thoughts out of her head.

Her father switched the conversation topic quickly “Miranda, you will never guess that Cedric has learned a new party trick.”

Her mother’s eyes lit up and she looked down at the sorcerer. “Oh? You will have to show us after dinner then Cedric.”

The king clapped his hands together “It’s stars, my dear, how quaint!” A conversation erupted over other party tricks they liked.

Sofia tightened her lips. The model he had made for her was anything but quaint. She wished more people recognized how advanced their sorcerer was. Her eyes fell onto the sorcerer again, his black hair curtaining his face as he ate. Did he feel this same kind of hot embarrassment that she felt? 

Like stars she burned. She burned with indignation, even if it wasn’t her own.


	4. A Show, A Seduction, A Scare

“Ow!” She winced as Amber corseted her into a dusty purple dress. It was the closest she could find to the dark purple nightgown that Lucy had loved. She found it harder to breathe as her waist got smaller and smaller.

“Just because you’re an alibi doesn’t mean you have to be an ugly alibi.” Amber tutted, frantically searching for a tiara that matched the dress. “That necklace doesn't match, why wear it?”

The silver chain disappeared between the valley of her breasts which had been pushed up uncomfortably. “It’s nothing.”

Amber looked back over her shoulder at her younger sister. “Since when did you start keeping secrets Sofia?”

“It’s not a secret, it’s just a…” her mind worked quickly to come up with another lie “a good luck charm!” Princesses didn’t lie, she admonished as she turned back to find a pair of shoes.

“Royalty doesn’t need luck Sofia, we have everything already.” Amber picked up a glittering silver tiara that had been buried underneath simpler jewelry. She placed it easily upon her sister’s head “And now you do too. Even if you’re just our alibi, you’re _royalty_  too! And now you look the part.”

Amber had beautiful hair that looked like spun gold, it tumbled down her back in waves. She was a picturesque princess and had no shortage of suitors. She wore a deep green tonight and a tiara twice as tall as the one Sofia had on. She envied her sister in ways she did not understand, she envied Amber because Amber always looked like she _was_ royalty.

James burst open the door and Amber squealed at the invasion of privacy, but Sofia simply continued putting on her slippers. “Are we ready ladies?” He offered an arm out to both of them, but only Amber took one. Sofia, who was examining herself in the mirror. Her hair, unlike Amber’s was a reddish brown and slightly frizzy. She awkwardly smoothed her hair down and turned back towards her siblings.

“A party then.” she smiled and her siblings returned it.

“Oh yes, Sofia you will _love_ it.” Her sister squealed “Prince Hugo knows how to party like no other prince. So many games, and the music is divine!”

Prince Hugo was currently residing in a country estate not far away from their own castle, and even from the compartment of the carriage she could hear the laughter of party goers.

Her sister was squirming with excitement but her brother was already peering out the window to admire the girls going by. “What beautiful roses have bloomed tonight!” He called and there was a chorus of giggles in return.

Both Amber and Sofia rolled their eyes and then they too giggled. Perhaps a night out with her siblings would take her mind off the questions that have plagued her the last few days. It was bad enough that she was lying and hiding things from her family, a night away from Cedric, and thoughts of the stone would be good for her.

James helped them both out of the carriage and Sofia was surprised at how courteous he was being to her, but then quickly saw the reason. A few beautiful duchesses were fanning themselves and watching. James never did anything without a reason, and lately that reason was girls. He flashed them a smile as he let go of Sofia’s hand and Amber made a short noise of annoyance at her younger brother.

“Shallow as a puddle, Sofia.” Amber chastised and then started up the stairs to the palatial country estate of Prince Hugo.

The grounds were swarming with people of all types, dukes, barons, and even just merchants were dancing and socializing. She had never attended a party so big and everyone knew exactly who she was and made sure that she knew who they were as well. It was perhaps after the sixth man bowed low before her that James caught sight of her and started to shoo people away.

“You’re too nice Sofia, these people are nobodies, don’t talk to them. You shouldn’t even be out here.”

She realized that she had become some sort of de facto greeter and was actually standing in the foyer speaking to people as they entered. “Where should I be?” Sofia asked, following her older brother up a curved staircase.

“With the rest of us, not those commoners. Amber has been looking for you.” He grabbed a champagne glass off a tray of a passing waiter and handed it to the younger girl. “We know you don’t get invited to these things often.”

“No.” Sofia admitted, her face reddening “No. I guess I don’t.”

“Not all of us can be social butterflies, there have to be caterpillars or how can we shine?” James smiled at her but Sofia felt like it was more of an insult than a compliment.

He pushed open two large oak doors and in a smaller sitting room there sat at least twenty people in quiet conversation listening to an even quieter quartet. Prince Hugo, who was talking closely with her sister stood up immediately to greet them.

“Oh! You found her James.” Amber said snapping her fan shut and standing to cross the room but instead James waved her off. “Sofia, where have you been, the prince has been asking for you!”

James replied before Sofia could. “She was where you left her dear sister,” Amber rolled her eyes at this “in the foyer.”

“You must be tired, Princess Sofia.” Prince Hugo bowed lowly and she was obliged to do the same “You see, the real party is here!” He gestured to the room “Please take a seat, our entertainment begins shortly.”

Prince Hugo was everything Sofia imagined a good prince should be, he had strong arms and a square face with blue eyes that reminded her much of her own father’s. His brown hair was always full of body and his fashion was better than any man she had ever seen. It was no wonder that girls fawned over him. Sofia had never been invited to his parties, she was quite sure that Prince Hugo didn’t want to be seen with her anymore, she wasn't one of the  _in_ girls like Amber.

Amber rushed over and opened her fan to cover her mouth as they spoke “Sofia, please occupy yourself, I feel like Prince Hugo and I are getting along so well! I don’t want this evening to be anything less than magical for us!”

“Oh, well, I can just sit over there.” Sofia gestured awkwardly and suddenly remembered that even if she was here, she wasn't one of the  _invited_ girls, she was just an alibi for her siblings.

Sofia found a seat on the far side of the room and played with the fabric of her dress, smoothing over the velvet a few times and trying to find something to stare at while she waited for the night to be over, but as the Prince had promised, the entertainment arrived a few minutes after she had been seated.

A man with long silver hair braided down his back and eyes that had no color walked in wearing purple robes that matched her dress. The Prince almost leapt out of his chair in excitement and rushed to help man, who looked no older than her father, crossed the room to an open area near a fireplace.

“This is our sorcerer, Morgon, and he’s got an excellent show planned, right Morgon?” Prince Hugo said eagerly and the sorcerer nodded.

Sofia was curious about how he could have a show when he had no pupils, just an uncomfortable whiteness that looked out over the room. Could he see? She noticed everyone else was staring as well.

His head turned towards her and she quickly looked downwards. He withdrew a wand that reminded her of Cedric. “If you would sit down, your majesty.” The sorcerer gestured to an open chair closest to him.

He _had_ to be able to see to know that. Sofia noticed that the Prince looked absolutely giddy and turned towards Amber who was fanning herself politely next to him. A magical night indeed for her sister, she would be pleased.

It began simply enough, conjuring smoke from a wand and forming it into animals, turning the fire behind him different colors to the applause of the twenty some royals gathered in the drawing room. Then the sorcerer began to show off, first with lightning in an overturned wine glass. Amber was absolutely ecstatic that he had chosen her empty wine glass to perform such a trick.

The whole party was levitated for awhile, much to Sofia’s dismay, and the simple party tricks stopped for a minute and Prince Hugo seemed to know what is next. “Gather round the windows everyone.” He gestured to the far wall that had been curtained off, a few servants pulled open the drapes to reveal huge glass windows that towered over her head.

Everyone got up instantly and rushed to the windows, Sofia hung back for a minute, hoping to stand near Amber instead of a stranger, but both Amber and James were busy with love interests and so she just stood nearest a window alone. It was night out, and she could see the line of carriages up the drive lit only by moonlight.

When the sorcerer moved in a swirl of purple fabric, the party parted to let him in the middle. “You’ll do it then?” Prince Hugo asked as he led the older man to the windows.

“ _Yes_ , your majesty.” The sorcerer sounded irritated. “I promised you, tonight only, _once_ only.”

“Oh good, Princess Amber, you will find this simply divine!”

“Oh Prince Hugo,” Amber replied breathlessly “Everything has been divine thus far, including the company.”

Sofia wished her sister was less overt about her attraction, but then again, who wasn’t overt at this party. Her eyes fell on her brother whose lips were dangerously close to a woman’s neck and the wandering hand that was on another woman’s rear.  

The sorcerer raised both of his arms like he was about to conduct an orchestra and suddenly the excited mutterings stopped, and even the quartet had gathered to see what magic was about to be performed. The sorcerer’s lips moved and there was no sound and with a violent downward stroke of his wand, he turned to face the party.

Nothing had happened. Mutters of confusion and then Prince Hugo's boyish grin fell a little. “Is it working? Is it going to work?” He whispered to the sorcerer, Sofia noted that the sorcerer had that same scowl that Cedric got when she asked questions.

James bumped into her roughly as he tried to shoulder his way towards the front of the crowd with a girl on his arm. Sofia almost fell over, but he caught her first, his hands coming around her neck and his fingers tangling in the silver chain of her necklace, snapping it loose. She felt it fall to the floor.

“Oh, Sofia, I’m sorry.”

He bent down to pick it up, but was distracted by the boom of a cannon that went off outside. The sky burned so brightly she could have sworn the sorcerer had pulled the sun down to earth, everything went blinding white for a fraction of a second and she had to look away for it hurt her eyes. The crowd took a collective gasp and continued to watch the sky burn brightly.

Sofia bent down to pick up her amulet, and the chain that had broken. A hand came on her wrist and she looked up to see the sorcerer, holding her tightly. She fisted the amulet into her hand.

“It’s you.” His voice took on a different tone “You have been bound.”

“Excuse me?” Her voice belied only half of the panic she felt, the rest of the crowd were still preoccupied with his trick.

“I felt your presence when I entered the room, finally, it has happened, just as I have hoped.” The sorcerer tugged on her wrist but she tugged back.

“Let go of me this instant!” Her voice rising.

“Sofia?” Amber called “Is everything alright?”

The sorcerer grabbed her wrist tightly, his white eyes staring through her. “Listen to me, girl, it is within you now, there is no stopping your fate.”

Her fate? This old sorcerer knew about the prophecy? Curiosity overtook her fear “Am I going to die?” She felt her breathing speed up “What do you know of me?”

“Morgon! Unhand my guest at once,” Prince Hugo ordered.

The sorcerer, as if burned, let go of her quickly and sped out of the room without looking back.

Sofia clenched her fists, looking back out the window and away from everyone to compose herself. “I truly am sorry Princess Sofia, he has never harmed any of my guests before.”

“Yes, well, I am sure he meant well. No need to be upset.” Amber smoothed over, taking her sister’s arm and smiling.

“Princess Amber, you know exactly what to say.” Prince Hugo praised.

Sofia looked back at her sister who gave her a look that said that she should drop it. So she did, and Sofia sat back in her chair, staring out the window into darkness, wondering how the wizard turned the sky white, and what he meant about her fate.

She absentmindedly turned over the stone in her hand, but tried to put it out of her mind. She would ask Cedric when she got a chance. Maybe this time, he wouldn’t dodge her questions.

For the rest of the night she could feel Prince Hugo watching her, and she thought that it was strange for him to be so concerned over her welfare when Amber was hanging off of him like a third arm.


	5. A Virtue, A Vice

“Oh mother,” Amber sighed at the breakfast table the next day “Prince Hugo is my everything!”

Sofia was absent mindedly pulling down her sleeve to cover the bruises left by the mad old sorcerer and ignoring her breakfast.

“Sofia, what did you think of the party?” Her mother asked, ignoring Amber’s umpteenth praise of the Prince of the neighboring kingdom.

“The sorcerer lit the whole sky with magic, it was as if he turned night into day.” Sofia smiled brightly and began to use her other hand to eat with clumsily.

“Yes!” Her father twirled his fork up in the air “Even we saw it! Cedric, that is a real party trick! You should be more like Prince Hugo’s sorcerer!”

“I don’t think so father,” Amber said looking over at Sofia “He was even weirder than our Cedric, he had no eyes! And he was just so strange the whole time.”

James was wolfing down food next to Sofia and nodded eagerly in agreement “It is a good thing Cedric is nothing like that sorcerer, I couldn’t sleep at night knowing some old coot like that was in the castle.”

“Not that our sorcerer is much better.” Amber added.

“Amber!” Their mother admonished but Cedric kept his head down and continued to eat breakfast.

“What? It’s true!”

“Honesty is important as a princess, but not if it’s hurtful Amber.” Her mother said and Sofia felt a pang of remorse.

She had been lying so much lately, even now. Sofia bowed her head and pulled on her sleeve again to hide the bruises she had promised James not to mention. Her whole life up until recently had been virtuous, but the closer she seemed to get to the truth of her amulet, the less virtuous she was becoming. 

The thoughts of her loss of virtue led her out into the gardens where she decided to see if the roses were in bloom yet. Anything to keep her mind off of what the sorcerer had said last night. She fiddled with the cuff of her sleeve and walked deeper into the gardens, passing a few servants who were trimming some of the hedges into perfection.

She enjoyed the breeze of late spring as clouds passed overhead, casting shadows on the vast grounds. Her mind was stuck on what it meant to be virtuous, as her mother and tutors had told her that to be a  _ real _ princess she had to be pure and proper. When Sofia looked at Amber, there was neither. So why did it hurt when she did something that could be considered improper? At this rate she would never be a princess. 

Sofia bit her lip and turned back towards the castle only to see that Cedric had been behind her.

“Let me see it.” He demanded and gestured to her arm that she had been holding.

“Why? There’s nothing to see” She cradled it protectively and he frowned.

“Morgon can be handsy.” He grabbed her wrist and she winced “and you’ve been hiding it all morning.”

“How did you know his name?” She asked as he turned her wrist over in his hand, five spots of purple on pale skin.

“Enough questioning.” Cedric snapped, dropping her wrist and then extracting a phial of green liquid from a pocket in his navy robes. “Apply this.”

Her hand came up to take the phial but stopped short “Why are you helping me?”

“I am helping Morgon keep his head, you are just a means to an end.”

She narrowed her eyes and snatched the glass from his hands quickly. She wasn’t sure if that was the real reason but she decided not to question the sorcerer. He seemed to relax when she took it.

“Do you know him then?” She said walking over to a stone bench near a sculpture of a horse.

“Morgon? He is an acquaintance.” Cedric didn’t look at her but elected to stand next to her as she rubbed the slimy green liquid on her skin. He cast a shadow over her and she found herself staring at him.

“He said something to me. He said I was bound.”

He tensed up, but didn’t respond “If that’s all, princess?”

“You know what that means, don’t you?” She looked down to see that her bruises were gone, but she still clutched the phial protectively.

“Morgon has always been a bit  _ off _ . I will take my leave.” He stalked off towards the castle, his midnight robes in a flurry behind him.

She would never get answers from Cedric, but Sofia was beginning to learn that his non answers were enough. For some reason, the two sorcerers knew each other, and both of them knew about her. That was enough to pique her interest. There was something strange going on between all these magicians, and the more time she spent around them the more she realized the witch was right. There really  _ was _ something strange about a sorcerer who had the power to turn day into night being at the beck and call of a temperamental Prince as a party favor.

“There you are Princess!” Baileywick seemed excited to finally catch up with her and she sighed, after a long night partying, she would just like some quiet.

“Baileywick, it is so good to see you.” She gave him a false smile turning away from the retreating form of Cedric and hiding the phial in the folds of her dress.

“Your presence has been requested in the throne room.” Baileywick said straightening his jacket now that he had relayed an important message.

Baileywick took his job as royal advisor very seriously, and Sofia had never lived a day without Baileywick guiding her. He took her from tutor to tutor, broke up fights between the royal siblings, and kept the entire family on a strict schedule. She got up and looked back to see the sprawling gardens awash with late spring color, curiously blue skies all the way to the distant mountains, and Baileywick trailing behind her as always.

“Baileywick, why must princesses be virtuous?” 

“If the royalty is virtuous, so are the people. Princesses set the example that the people must follow. No one will be kind and honest if their leaders are not.”

“Amber is not virtuous.” She shot back ascending the steps to the castle.

“Only you and I happen to know that, Princess Sofia.”

“So it is okay to be less than virtuous as long as the people don’t know?”

Baileywick passed her and opened the doors for her, gesturing for her to go inside. “I think, Princess, that it would be much harder to be virtuous only when people are watching, than to be virtuous all the time.”

“Surely it would be easier, as long as you knew when people were watching!” Sofia’s voice echoed off the walls.

“Therein lies a problem Princess, you never know when people are watching.”

Poignant and correct as always, there was a reason that Baileywick was a royal advisor. She had nothing more to add. Now quiet, she walked to the throne room trying to digest his words and wondering exactly who was watching her.

“Princess Sofia of Enchancia.” called Baileywick next to her and she curtsied low to whoever the visitors might be.

“Oh! Princess Sofia!” She knew that voice, and looked up to see Prince Hugo rise from his knee in front of her father. “I’m so happy you’re well.”

Her father got off his throne and stood up for the princess, descending the red carpeted steps down to greet her. She noted that Amber was not in the room and stitched her brows in confusion. Surely if the Prince was here, Amber would be the first to greet him.

“You only saw her last night,” her father met her halfway down the hall and beamed at her “Surely she was in good hands with you Prince Hugo”

Now it was the Prince’s turn to look confused. “She didn’t tell you? Th-”

She had to make up a lie quick, or Amber and James would be furious with her for ratting them out about what had really happened at the party. They were family, and family came first, even more than honesty.

“That the party was absolutely  _ exhausting _ .” cut in Sofia hurriedly, she shot a look to the Prince and turned to her father. “I know that I can’t possibly party like that all the time, right Prince Hugo?”

“Yes, of course!” He laughed and her father joined in.

“It’s good to see Sofia getting out in society, she’s been such a shut in! Well, I’ll leave you two to it.” The king motioned towards Baileywick and Sofia felt panic shoot through her.

“Father, where are you going?” She called but all she received was a wave in return.

The doors shut and the thud echoed off the empty court. Sofia suddenly felt very  _ very _ trapped and Prince Hugo’s award winning smile suddenly looked slightly predatory. She straightened her posture and squeezed the vial of bruise salve in her hand that was all sweaty.

“Is Amber on her way then?” Sofia smiled.

“I didn’t come here to see Princess Amber, Princess Sofia.” He offered his arm to her and she looked around the throne room to see if some kind of trick was being played.

No one else was present. “Is that so?”

“Walk with me in the gardens, Princess?”

Her stomach did flip flops and she wasn’t sure if it was because of the wrongness of Prince Charming coming to visit her instead of her sister, or because she wanted this to be happening. No royal had ever paid her mind before, and now, here he was, the most royal of men, asking for her company! “Yes, I think it’s nice today, er I  _ know _ it’s nice today! I was just there...outside that is, not today.”

Prince Hugo’s laughter was music and she felt herself blush. Maybe all the fussing that Amber had done over her last night had paid off? She settled her hand on the crook of his arm, and she mustered all the confidence she could find to say “The gardens then?”

“You know, you have blossomed into quite a beauty these past few years, Princess.” Prince Hugo murmured lovingly as they passed the bed of yellow tulips.

She was dreaming, she absolutely  _ had _ to be. “It runs in the family.” She replied modestly, and he hummed in agreement.

“Why is it that no one has seen much of you in society, Princess Sofia?”

She knew the reason, but she didn’t want to tell him. Often overshadowed by Amber and James, it was hard for her to find confidence when she felt like she didn’t belong with them, and so she had taken to hiding. He didn’t need to know this though, an opportunity for his attention would not come twice. “I’ve been busy.”  _ Princesses didn’t lie! _ She screamed internally.

“I am sorry that my sorcerer thought to scare you at the party. He told me he had been looking forward to meeting you.”

“Meeting me?” They turned towards the small lake at the edge of the grounds and the very idea that Morgon knew and had been actively looking for her made her heart race.

“Yes, we both have been hoping to get to know you better.”

She looked over at the cordial Prince who was now studying the water, the mid afternoon sunlight glittered over the glassy surface. “Why?”

“Don’t be coy, Princess Sofia. A woman as beautiful as you should know why.” He smiled at her and opened his mouth to continue but a crack of a branch and an indignant cry caught both of their attentions.

“Prince Hugo!” Amber’s voice interrupted them and she jumped away from the prince even as he tried to keep a hold of her hand.

Atop the hill was a very angry Princess, who was wearing more jewels than she thought could fit on a person. Amber’s hair was windswept and her eyes were burning. Sofia knew her precious moments being the center of Prince Hugo’s attention ran out. She curtsied to both of them and before Amber exploded, as she was apt to do, she rushed out of the gardens. Not passing a second glance at either of them.

His attention was something that every girl had dreamed of, he was truly a good prince, but why is it when he spoke, he gave her a feeling of unease? She bit her lip and walked up the castle steps. Why would anyone look forward to meeting the youngest princess of Enchancia? No one ever wanted to see her, not when Amber existed. Perhaps it was for that reason alone, she thought, that the way Prince Hugo doted on her, made her think twice about accepting his attention.

* * *

Sofia rolled the phial between her hands nervously as she walked to Cedric’s laboratory the next day. Where Prince Hugo made her nervous, visiting Cedric lately had made her terrified. She wasn’t sure if it was because his temper seemed to have worsened lately when it came to her, or because she knew he had information she needed. She sighed before knocking on the door.

An irritated squawk from his bird, but no cursing, a quiet “Come in Princess Sofia.” and the thud of a book closing. He knew it was her, no one else ever knocked. 

She pushed the door open slightly, peeking around the corner to see Cedric studying the cover of some book, his head bowed as it usually was. Sofia wondered if he had bad posture from being hunched over all the time. “Don’t dawdle.” He snapped. 

Sofia quickly stepped inside, shutting the door behind her before leaning against it, a nervous smile playing at her lips. “I brought back the green stuff you gave me.”

“You’ll notice I didn’t ask for it back.” He said, unmoving.

She walked up to his workbench, covered in plants and open jars of animal parts alike and set the phial down on one of the few clear spaces she could find. Sofia was sure it was fear that was making it hard to breathe.

“Prince Hugo came to visit me,” She started trying to break the ice, but instantly regretted her words when she saw his reaction.

He bristled next to her and opened the book quickly that he had been reading. The text looked like scribbles and waves, no known lettering she had seen before in her studies. She tried to continue her earlier line of conversation, her voice came out shaky “He said Morgon was looking forward to meeting me.”

“And yet, he did not know how to meet with Princess Sofia of Enchancia who has been residing in her castle in the middle of Enchancia the entire time?”

“I think there is something else, Mister Cedric.” She began to play with the phial, rolling it on the uneven wood beneath her palm, nerves fought with her as she disclosed her fears to the sorcerer “There’s something strange going on.”

“Paranoia is unbecoming of the next wife of Prince Hugo.” He snorted and flipped the page with more force than he needed.

His words stung, but she pressed forward, she was used to his barbs by now. “Do you know something? About me?”

“I know you’ve become an annoying, nosy  _ brat _ the last few days since you visited that witch in the woods. Where is your husband-to-be? Spend time with him, leave me.” 

It hurt more than it usually did, and she turned to look at Wormwood that had been preening itself since she entered. Wiping the tears that stung her eyes away quickly she continued, addressing what everyone already knew. “Prince Hugo would never marry me.” She said quickly, more to the raven than him “He’s here for Amber.”

“Princess Amber has a reputation that you lack.”

“Exactly! She is everything a princess  _ should  _ be. She knows every dance, and everyone’s name, and she has every dress and every jewel in the castle.”

“Princess, do you think I am here to listen to your idle gossip?”

She turned back to Cedric and clasped her hands in front of her “No,” A pause before a horrible truth slipped out “I just don’t have anyone else I trust.” 

At this he looked up at her, his black eyes searching hers briefly before turning away. He let out a small hmph and flipped another page. She wanted confirmation that their royal sorcerer was every bit as good as Prince Hugo’s. She wanted some way to prove everyone wrong about Cedric being inept. “What kind of trick did Morgon do to turn night into day?”

“When it’s that large of a spell, I don’t think I would call it a trick anymore,  _ Princess _ .” He stressed her title hoping that she would catch his loathing, but she chose to ignore it.

“A spell then.”

He grabbed his wand and swished it upwards and over the two of them appeared an orb of white light about the same size as her hand, enough to illuminate the small workshop as if they were outside. He reached up and grabbed it, before pulling it down to hand to the princess.

She cradled it, it felt like cold glass despite it burning brightly in her hands. “This was it?” It was so bright it hurt her eyes, but she was afraid that if she moved it away it would break apart.

“Yes, but obviously much larger in the case that it lit up the kingdom.” He seemed to notice her discomfort and touched the orb in her hands, dragging his finger downwards to turn the white light into a soft amber glow. “It won’t break so easily, you can handle it.”

“Oh!” She said stupidly and relaxed, looking up at him with a smile “It’s very beautiful when it’s like this.”

“Yes,” He said softly, his eyes falling away from hers and back down at the orb in her hands. “It takes magic to sustain its shape, a small one like this, is stable and takes little effort, a large one...”

“Will explode.” She interjected “Like his did that night.”

“Amusing probably to watch, but a lot of work for the caster.” He said and snapped his fingers and the orb was gone. 

“Oh! It takes energy?” She asked and then felt stupid for making him state the obvious.

“Magic takes a lot of things.” He said and created a second light orb for her, this time small enough to fit in one hand, it emitted the same amber glow as before. “You get to keep this one, so get out of my laboratory.”

She cradled it like a baby bird and decided not to press her luck. She was unbelievably giddy to have an actual conversation with the sorcerer, or perhaps it was just the new toy that she had received. Yes, it would make more sense if it was just the toy. No one got excited when they spoke to Cedric, even as her stomach did flip flops. She smiled to herself and rushed up to her rooms, knowing exactly where she would put it, beside her bed, a magical candle that never went out, and she would never have to face the dark by herself again.

Cedric knew exactly what to give her. She wondered if mind reading was magic.

Over dinner Amber was shooting her daggers and James was going on about the hunt, but no matter how her siblings were acting, she was smiling rather stupidly to herself over the new orb of light she had gotten earlier.

“It seems that Sofia already knows about the good news!” Her father interjected pointing a forkful of meat at her.

“Sofia seems to know a  _ lot _ of things lately.” Her sister crossed her arms at the table and puffed her cheeks out in a pout.

“Yes well, if you were around more, Amber, you would know as well. After talking with Prince Hugo, we too would like to hold a summer ball at the castle.” Her father said proudly “Your mother has agreed to it and we’ve already begun preparations for a ball on the longest day of the year.”

“The solstice?” Sofia looked up from her plate and her mother enthusiastically nodded. Her mother loved balls.

“And to make things better, Prince Hugo and his family will be in attendance!” Her father winked at Sofia but she hurriedly looked down at her plate.

“Yes!” squealed Amber “Oh thank you Daddy! I have to call the seamstress right away! I  _ definitely _ need a new dress now.”

“Cedric, I trust you have some ideas for entertainment already?”

A wave of indignation washed over her “Father, I think Cedric has other things to do too, sometimes.”

“Don’t be stupid Sofia,” shot back Amber “The quartet doesn’t complain when it gets a chance to play, why should Cedric be any different.”

“Amber, don’t insult your sister.” Miranda admonished politely next to her “Sofia, don’t reply for other people.”

Sofia pursed her lips in annoyance, and focused intently on her food. She hated it when her mother treated her as a child. 

Cedric finally replied after a few seconds of silence. “Yes, your majesty. I am quite sure you will enjoy what I’ve prepared.”

“It needs to be spectacular, one of a kind magic! After we saw what Prince Hugo’s man could do I need to know we can do better.”

“Yes your majesty.”

“Anyways,” James seemed put out by all this talk of a party and not enough talk of the boar he had killed in the woods earlier “It was huge Dad, really huge!” He bumped the table trying to show the size and ended up accidentally tangling his fingers in Sofia’s hair, to which he said sorry twice, once to Queen Miranda, and once to Sofia who was untangling them gently.

Dinner was filled with talk of the ball and even Baileywick joined in talking about sending invitations already to only the finest in society, but Sofia realized Amber wasn’t the only one glaring at her anymore. Cedric looked as if he was going to murder her for speaking in his defense.

Princesses always got things right, and right now, everything seemed to be going very wrong. Why couldn’t she act like a real princess like Amber? Everyone loved her. Sofia left dinner early and flopped down on her bed, watching the shadows her orb cast across the room, wishing very much so that she was a  _ real _ princess, because despite having the title, she felt like she didn’t possess it.


	6. An Order, An Ordeal

Lucinda visited the following weekend, excited about the ball, and more excited to visit the castle. She was in her fineries, which was a rather airy blue dress that was in pale contrast with her black hair. Amber scoffed as they passed her for tea in the gardens, but as Sofia had no one to visit her most of the time, any visit Lucinda gave her was a treasure, even if she wasn’t the type of company Amber wanted her to keep.

“Have you decided on what you’re wearing?” She asked excitedly, pouring more tea into her floral cup.

Sofia shook her head. “I know that Amber called upon the royal tailor, but I haven’t had a chance to see him yet. She keeps him holed up in her rooms for hours on end, by the time he leaves each night, he looks exhausted.”

“I wouldn’t expect anything less from Princess Amber.” Lucinda giggled.

Baileywick interrupted their conversation with tea sandwiches from the kitchens and bowed lowly to the two of them, resulting in protests from both of the ladies sitting at the table. “Lucinda, I am so glad you could make it to the castle today, Princess Sofia has been going on about it all week!”

“Baileywick!” cried Sofia, and then she turned to Lucinda, blushing “I have been looking forward to your visit though, it is a breath of fresh air”

Lucinda smiled and inhaled deeply “These  _ gardens _ are a breath of fresh air, they smell so lovely in the spring.”

“Well, I’ll leave you two to it.” Baileywick bowed deeply again and motioned for a few gardeners to leave for other parts of the garden so the girls had some privacy.

“He adores you, you know,” Lucinda said watching the retreating royal advisor.

“It’s his job to adore me, and all the royal children. He doesn’t treat me any differently than Amber or James.”

“Maybe a little different, I couldn’t see him serving sandwiches to Amber when another servant could do just as well.”

“Baileywick has always been there for me, I’m sure he just wanted to see you again Lucy.”

“I wanted to see you again, our sleepover was a few weeks ago and I haven’t heard from you since!”

“It’s been busy…”

“I know the reason why,” Lucinda began, her voice hesitant, “My mom told me.” 

Sofia felt her heart drop a little, she had hoped the witch in the woods would keep quiet about her questions. “Oh?”

“She says you wanted to know about magic, and she wouldn’t tell you, that’s why you stopped writing.” 

The stone  _ was _ magic then. Excitement mingled with her anxiousness and she smiled at her friend across the table. “That’s only half true, I guess. Remember the gypsy?”

Lucinda nodded “From ages ago? Did she come back?”

“No, it’s just something that she said to me,” not a lie! A half-truth! “and I was hoping maybe your mom would know more about what she said. But she didn’t, not really.”

“Do you think that the gypsy put some curse on you?”

“No, I think she could see the future.”

Lucinda suddenly got very quiet “Even mom says people can’t see the future, it’s just not done Sofia.”

“I know, Cedric said it was stupid, but I don’t think it’s stupid. Do you?”

Lucinda fiddled with one of her tea sandwiches and let the conversation lapse for a few seconds. “I believe you Sofia, even if no one else does, I do.”

Relief flooded through her, and she sighed, relaxing back into the chair. Lucinda was not royalty, she was better. She was a true friend. Finally, someone believed her obsession with the gypsy who visited her on her birthday, and she had the beginnings of an answer about the stone. It was magical, and that was enough to motivate her to go find her personal magician: Cedric.

Lucinda stayed until sunset and then was overjoyed to be able to take a carriage home. She chatted up the coachman for awhile and Sofia enjoyed the pained expression the man made when he politely put up with her fingers inspecting each button on his coat. She laughed and waved, getting into the coach without help. There was no one like Lucinda, she was sure of it.

Sofia waved politely at the retreating coach until the heavy wood gates closed behind it, and making sure that there was no one to see her. She turned and rushed back in the castle as fast as her legs could carry her. She knew her intuition was right, and now she would get confirmation! However, when she went to the workshop it was empty, and the library as well. She peered into the throne room, empty, and then in the dining hall, empty. Where was he?

“Baileywick!” She said rushing down a staircase into the main hall.

The royal advisor was in quiet conversation with a few maids when he turned to the princess who was bounding downstairs to meet him.

“Princess!” He looked alarmed and rushed to greet her “Whatever is the matter?”

“I can’t find Cedric.” She realized that running in a corset would be her undoing. She was wheezing in the main hall and doubled over, clutching her chest. Baileywick fussed over her but she waved him off.

“I would think not, he left to prepare some things for the solstice ball.” He pulled out a pocket watch and then said: “About an hour ago now.” 

“Oh. He didn’t tell me.” But then again why would he have to report his comings and goings to a nosy princess? She looked over the maids who were no doubt whispering about her before they left for the kitchens.

“Yes, well, he should be back in a few days, princess. I am sure that whatever question you have for him can be answered then.”

Her heart hurt and all her enthusiasm left her at once. She was tired. She was sure that the feeling was only disappointment that Cedric was missing because she was impatient to solve a four-year-long mystery. Baileywick offered to play cards with her before dinner, but for now, she asked to be left alone.

* * *

 

After two days spent moping, and a third asking everyone in the castle when Cedric would return, Baileywick told her to leave or she would drive him insane. So she was in the village to spend time with people who needed it the most. Surely an afternoon with the villagers would take her mind off of Cedric and the stone that seemed to weigh both heavily on her mind and her neck.

“And the frog and the princess were married at last. The End.” She said closing the book and looking out over the group of school children in the village.

She was rewarded with applause and the schoolmistress, her only other friend, corralled the children into being quiet so they could ask the princess questions. 

“Does anyone have any questions for Princess Sofia?” Jade asked, her voice reminded her of birdsong. She was slightly older and plain, but sweeter than honey with a lovely singing voice.

“Would you marry a frog?” A dirty looking blonde girl asked near the back.

“Susanna! Be polite!” Jade exclaimed next to her.

“I suppose I would if he were a very nice frog.” Sofia replied looking thoughtful “Would you marry a frog?”

There was a collective ‘ewww’ from the children and she smiled. Yes, this was a better thing to do than mope around the castle.

“ _ Please _ , will you read us another story?” The same girl asked. Sofia supposed _please_ made it polite.

“Susanna, behave! Other children have questions if you want your questions answered, wait your turn.”

“I am afraid that is up to your schoolmistress,” Sofia said setting down the book atop of four others on the floor next to her chair.

“We have taken enough time of the Princess’ today, children. You can only avoid maths for so long.” 

There was a collective groan. Sofia got up and curtsied to the children and received various types of curtsies, bows and just confused looks from the children in return before following Jade out of the small one-room schoolhouse.

“Ah,” Jade said stretching her hands up to the sky “It is good to see you again Princess, we always appreciate when you come to visit.”

“Jade,” Sofia admonished “Just Sofia is fine, we’ve known each other since we were children.”

“It’s so strange to be friends with a Princess, I’m not sure how to act.”

Sofia looked over the village and smiled serenely at a few villagers who noticed that royalty was stopped in front of the school. She had spent most of her childhood here, choosing to sneak out and play with the other children instead of her private lessons in the castle. “Is it?” Sofia asked after a few minutes “I wish it wasn’t, Lucinda doesn’t seem to mind.”

Jade stifled a laugh “and lose out on all those potential husbands? I couldn’t see it happening, not in my lifetime.”

“You’re invited to the Solstice Ball as well, I told Lucinda to invite you, but I don’t know if she’s been to see you yet.” 

“Oh Pri-Sofia, I couldn’t, I don’t have any dresses that are royal ball worthy.” 

“No, I insist, I won’t have any company otherwise.”

Jade heard something clatter inside the schoolhouse and turned back to look at the closed door. “Not even for a few moments, goodness. I trust you can find your way back Sofia?” 

“You’ll come, right?” Sofia asked walking down the stone path out to the royal guards who were waiting for her. 

“I can’t deny a royal order.” Jade said quickly and disappeared back into the school, an exasperated “Susanna!” wafted out before the door slammed shut.

“Not a royal order, just a friend...order.” Sofia said to the closed door before turning back to her guards.

She hated the guards that accompanied her around the village, their armor was loud and she could feel their eyes on her at all times. She knew it was their job, but it didn’t make it easier to bear. 

“Oh Princess,” a passing merchant said as she walked through the main square. “It’s good to see you out and about despite the trouble we’ve been having.”

His clothing reminded her of her own, deep rich velvets and realized he was one of the wealthier men in the village. He bowed his head to her and the few grey hairs he had left flitted in the breeze.

“What trouble?” She said looking around as if it would be readily apparent.

“Oh, it’s those damned traveling gypsies again. They come and use our farmlands to live off of during the summer months, it’s absolutely disgusting.”

Her eyes lit up “Every summer?”

“Every few years I suppose, their blasted horses keep eating the wheat in my fields.” The merchant looked at the guard instead of the princess “Why aren’t you doing something about this?”

Sofia’s birthday was at the end of the summer and always fell as the harvest started. A plan was formulating in her head, and she knew that she was going to have to visit the gypsies, without her guards. “I’ll try to make sure that something can be done about your wheat then, what is your name?”

“Gregory Allenstadt.”

“Mister Allenstadt, thank you.” Perfect, she knew his name, and now she could find the gypsies easily. Princesses weren’t supposed to be sly, but she found it hard not to be. She would just ask the gypsies her questions and leave.

He seemed surprised that the princess was willing to help and bowed lowly “Thank  _ you _ , princess, for saving my profits.”

She stopped by the bakery for some sweets before she headed home, electing to sit outside the shop on a small bench and pass out candies to some children who weren’t old enough to attend school while she ate some herself. She felt sometimes like she belonged in the village, everyone was kind, but she supposed it was because she was a princess. Her manners were never minded, and no one complained about society. 

That is where Cedric found her, helping a child who had squirmed away from their mother open up a toffee wrapper that they had ripped in their impatience.

“Princess,” the mother said trying to stoop down and grab her wriggling two-year-old boy “There’s really no need.”

The candy begun to float and then divested its wrapper by itself before landing back down in her hands. She looked away from the impatient toddler who had grabbed the candy out of her hands before she could hand it to him.

“So inept you cannot open candy now?” Cedric asked, but did not stop, as he continued his journey up to the castle on foot.

“Say thank you to the princess, Sam.” She turned back to the mother who had effectively picked up her toddler and was trying to prevent him from drooling on himself.

The toddler, Sam, mumbled something with his mouth full of sticky toffee, and the princess smiled. It was good of Cedric to help her with the toddler, the wrapper was impossible.

Cedric. Cedric was back!

“Cedric!” cried the princess “Wait!”

Her guards were startled at the princess suddenly running off and cried for her to stop. What a sight she must make chasing after the old sorcerer in her finest! She wondered if he secretly enjoyed all the attention, but she knew better. Cedric would rather be forgotten than the center of attention. 

“I am too busy for your incessant questions today princess,” Cedric said ahead of her as she panted and rushed every few seconds to try and get next to him “I have lots of business to attend to.”

“Wait, wait, just one question!” A squeal and then a cry from both of her guards as she tripped over a stone and fell to the ground.

Cedric stopped and turned to see the youngest royal child face down in the dirt path and sighed. “Get up, get up, dust yourself off, Sofia.”

She thought of what Amber would do in this situation, what a real Princess would do if someone was ignoring her. She elected to lay there and pout, just like Amber. “The witch in the wo-”

“Not that old hag again, Princess, you’re embarrassing me  _ and _ the guards, get up you silly thing.”

“She said the stone was magic, Cedric.”

“Yes, I know. Please, Princess! There will be talk, get up before we all lose our jobs.”

“You’ll talk to me then? You’ll tell me?” Her eyes looked up at the sorcerer’s feet.

“That wizard hurt the princess?” asked a woman passing by. “Disgusting, the lot of them.”

“A wizard is attacking the royal family?” another whisper. “We shoulda killed them all when we had the chance.”

“Why aren’t you lot doin’ anything?” shouted a woman to the guards

“Princess!” Cedric sounded desperate “Yes! Ok!”

She pushed herself up to her knees and looked up at the sorcerer who looked ready to bolt. “Really?”

She noticed a crowd had gathered around them and the guards looked frantic. 

“Yes! Princess Sofia, you’re going to get me killed.” Cedric looked around them, he looked like a caged animal.

She got up and began to pat off her dress, knowing that it would be ruined. He spelled her clean and grabbed her arm and started dragging her towards the castle. “Allow  _ me _ to escort you.”

“Ow! Cedric not so hard,” she hissed, but he looked murderous.

She had a feeling that she wouldn’t be getting her questions answered. Maybe sulking on the ground as Amber did at the table was not the best way to get answers. Princesses didn’t make mistakes like this. Her elation that Cedric had finally returned was crushed by the fact that she kept making mistakes.

“What are you playing at?” He asked once they were safely inside his lab, he spelled her clean and tossed the bag he had been carrying on the workbench.

“What do you mean?” She said sitting down on the stool nearest the work table.

“Are you daft? Princess Sofia, I thought Princess Amber was truly the dullest princess I had yet to meet, and I have been proven wrong.”

Sofia frowned and looked over at his bag just to avoid eye contact. “Was it because I was excited to see you? I jus-”  
  
“It was because you almost got me killed in a fit of pique! A grown woman, no, a grown  _royal_ woman laying down before a wizard? I am surprised that a mob hadn’t formed on the spot!”

Every word he said stung more than the last. “Cedric,” her voice was thick with emotion “No one would harm you, there’s no-”

He was in a rage, he crossed the room and gripped the window sill “Enough! Enough from you! Enough questions, enough apologies. Until your empty little head can get around the consequences of your actions don’t  _ ever _ speak to me.”

She could have made him stop. She could have pulled rank on him, but she knew if she said anything about her title, he would never tell her what she wanted. It would just make him angry. All she could do was sit there and listen to him. She didn’t want to make him any angrier than he already was.

Her hands were getting wet, and she realized she was crying. “Yes,” she croaked “Yes, sorry Cedric.”

He turned back just in time to see the teary princess flee his laboratory, and a loud bang echoed down the hallway.

She hurt. She didn’t show her face for dinner, and for breakfast the next morning she had it sent to her rooms. Sofia didn’t want to see anyone for a while, not until she found out a way for Cedric to stop being so angry with her. If Cedric was cross with her, she’d never get the answers she wanted.


	7. A Make-up, A Sneak-out

Baileywick was playing cards with the sulking princess in the solarium a few days later. She had been coaxed out by the promise of good tea and company by the royal advisor after she skipped lunch the third time.

“I heard that you had a row with Cedric a few days ago,” Baileywick remarked drawing another card from the deck.

She looked up over her cards to see the royal advisor regarding his hand intently. Nothing travels faster than gossip. “How did you hear?”

“The whole village heard, Princess.”

Sofia made a small noise of discontent before laying two cards down on the table. “It was none of their business.”

“He attacked you, apparently.” replied the advisor, his tone flat.

“If Cedric wanted to attack me, I would not be here. I tripped over a stone.”  
  
“You’re no longer a child, you can’t be running in your fineries, princess. I thought I taught you better than that.”

“Yes, well, I was in a hurry.” She huffed, sick of being chastised already when it was her first time out of her rooms in days. “The villagers just stopped to gawk.”

“He has been avoiding his meals too, although…” Baileywick replied, “He does not have the luxury of staff willing to wait on him, so heavens knows what he’s been eating.”

“I don’t know why he was so angry at me anyway!” Sofia was now getting worked up and set her hand of cards down on the table. “I only tripped! Is it because he was seen talking to me?”

Baileywick leaned back in his chair, regarding the girl across from him, still in her dressing gowns with red-rimmed eyes and wild hair. “Princess, what do you know of The Last War?”

“You know I was no good at history, Baileywick.” She waved him off “Professor Falcone was more boring than watching father doing court business.”

Baileywick set his cards down on the table too. “Perhaps, some issues might resolve themselves between you and the temperamental sorcerer, if you did some homework, Princess Sofia.”

Later that day, a book was delivered to her room by a very confused maid “I didn’t know you liked to read Princess Sofia!” and sat down on her bed with a thump. 

The princess rolled around the orb of light between her hands for a while as she studied the worn red leatherbound book with gold filigree that stated “The History of Enchancia Volume IX.” It was as thick as her mattress. Getting information from Cedric required a lot of work, she sighed and flipped open to the Introduction, all 45 pages of it. It was going to be a long night.

After four hours, and waking up on top of a passage about political tensions she ventured down into the kitchen to make herself some tea in an effort to wake up. Instead of a candle, she used the light orb that Cedric had gifted her to guide her through the dark halls. The palace was silent save for a few guards who were standing sentry to the throne room and the main entrance, and even they looked like they were just dozing while standing.

Sofia yawned as she began to fill a kettle with water and stoke the embers of the stove with a poker. How did the maids put up with this every day? She found another log and shoved it into the fire and waited for the water to heat back up, sitting atop a counter and mulling over what she had read.

A war broke out twenty years ago between Enchancia and the neighboring kingdom of Scyvyas that caused great losses on both sides. Scyvyas was home to gypsies and mages of all kinds. However, the book didn’t detail how the war was won, just that it was fought, and that Enchancia was victorious. The war broke out because a royal was murdered by a sorcerer, but they never found the body of the supposed royal either. She thought about it for a while, but could not come to any conclusions aside from the ones the book already gave her. 

She let out a sigh of frustration, everywhere she turned for answers, it seemed that there were twenty more questions behind it. She poked the fire again in hopes that the water would boil faster for tea.

“Princess?”

She squealed and fell over onto the floor, ashes flying out of the stove and onto her white nightgown. Sofia looked up to see Cedric, looking as tired and worn out as she felt peering down at the princess. He opened his mouth to say something, but the kettle began to whistle. She had been so impatient for her tea, but now she wished it would have only waited a few more moments.

“Tea?” She asked finally, removing the kettle.

“Why aren’t you in bed?” He hedged, his eyes fell on the orb he had made for her sitting on the countertop. “You kept it?”

“Of course I kept it, you gave it to me. Tea or no?”

A long-suffering sigh, then “Tea...and some food as well, I skipped dinner.”

He tossed the orb upwards and it stuck in midair, illuminating the entire kitchen instead of just her corner and she smiled to herself at the casual display of magic. “When I give things to the other princess and prince, they don’t keep.”

“What do you mean?” She reached up to grab a teapot and china out of the cupboards but he came up behind her and grabbed them instead. She could feel his body against hers and for some reason, she didn’t mind it.

“Don’t strain yourself, little girl.” He said next to her, setting the tea set down and she frowned filing away her reaction to his closeness for another time.

“What do you mean they don’t keep?” She continued, scooping tea leaves into the pot.

“They disappear eventually when they run out of energy to exist. Only a little energy is put into creating it and sustaining it, just enough to get you to leave, but it’s been a while now, hasn’t it?” He looked over at the orb that he was using as a light source for the kitchen.

She sat down at a table in the kitchen with the tea set and some biscuits. She began to pour them both tea, watching him think over the mystery of her little light orb before joining her. If they were going to talk again, especially about her stone, then she would have to be the better person.

“When…” she stopped, unsure of how to begin “When Amber wants something from father, or from Baileywick, or even from other boys, she throws a fit, and she gets it.”

Cedric stirred his tea a little, adding sugars and listening.

She pressed on. “I thought, stupidly, that it would work for me. I didn’t know about...about how people felt about you.”

“Sometimes, princess, I think you forget who you are.”

“No,” she said quietly “I never knew what people thought of who  _ you  _ were.”

He let the conversation lapse for a few moments and a few sips of tea before beginning again. “Some of the things I said, might have been wrong to say, now that I think about it.” His eyes looked up at her “I have not had many...princesses to deal with in my time. You are the only person...I mean princess...who has ever seen me as more than an entertainer, and I just need to…” he looked away from her now “I’m sorry, alright? Is that what you want?”

“No,” she replied, but she couldn’t hide her smile behind her teacup.

He quickly regained composure, realizing things were back to normal between them “You look awful, I hope that my apology will make you at least brush your hair now.”

“Same goes to you.” She snapped and instantly regretted it. “I have not had many sorcerers to deal with, so I’m still getting used to him...I mean them.”

“You’re a fool, princess, for choosing to spend your time chasing after answers to that stone.” He said changing the subject “If the answers haven’t shown themselves in four years, what makes you think now is the time? Forget about it.”

“Ah, but now  _ is _ the time Cedric, I have it on good word that the person who gave me this stone might be closer than you think.”

“It is moments like these that I wish you took after your sister Amber, instead of running around and getting into trouble instead.” 

When tea was done, he held his hand up in the air. His navy sleeve falling down to his shoulder, revealing black ink circles running up his bicep and disappearing behind the fabric and the orb came flying towards them and landed in his palm.

“Hold this, princess.” He passed it to her easily across the table.

She cradled it as she usually did.

“Close your eyes,” he commanded.

Sofia obeyed easily and wished she hadn’t. Could she trust him? She had so far.

“Concentrate on it.” His voice was sharp.

“Why?” She asked, suddenly beginning to feel nervous.

“Don’t question my methods, girl.” He snapped and she jumped a little.

She inhaled deeply, and sighed, trying to imagine the orb in her hands, the soft amber glow, the cold, smooth glass. Suddenly there was a pop and she heard glass shatter and when she opened her eyes, the orb and the light was gone. The room was pitch black, and she couldn’t even see the tea set, let alone the sorcerer.

“Cedric,” she asked, uncertain if he was even still in the room. Fear rose quickly. “Cedric!”

“I’m here. No need to shout. I will give you another.” He said quietly across from her, and then another orb of light was conjured in the space above their heads and he pulled it down and handed it to her.

“What did I do? Did I break it?”

“You did.”

“How?”

“How indeed, princess.” He said before standing up and bidding her goodnight.

* * *

Three nights later, and after a lot of planning and false starts. Sofia decided to see the gypsies near Mister Allendstadt’s farm. Wearing her winter scarf over her head, and a flurry of fabrics and even one of her bedsheets tied around her waist to mimic what she remembered the gypsy from years ago, that night, Sofia crossed the castle grounds when the moon was the highest, ducking behind two guards who were standing watch at a back gate, and drifting into the thick forest behind the castle.

The problem with wearing many fabrics in the forest is they seemed to catch on everything, and so not even five steps in she found herself tugging to get her sleeve untangled from a tree branch, and then her skirt from a bush, and then her scarf untangled from Cedric.

“Princess.” He said tugging on the scarf, his wand illuminating his face to make him look almost sinister. “Where do you think you’re going?”

She grabbed the fabric and tugged back. “I told you, I’m going to find someone who knows about my stone.”

“You are  _ not _ going to see the gypsies on the edge of town, are you mad? You’ll be killed.”

How did he manage to find out about the gypsies! She had to go see them, she had to learn the truth! “You won’t tell me, but they might!” 

“Why would a gypsy tell anything to a royal princess?”

“I’m not a princess, look,” She gestured to her dress “I’m a gypsy!”

“I was wondering why you were wearing those ridiculous looking clothes, and once again I realize you make the most asinine decisions. No gypsy is going to believe a princess in bedsheets, like I told you before, gypsies will only tell you things to get to your gold.”

“Either tell me what you know or let me go, Cedric!” Her voice was getting shrill, and her patience was wearing thin.

“I don’t know anything about your damned rock!” He snapped and yanked harder on her scarf causing her to stumble back towards him. “Stop asking questions! Just be forget it, damn you! If you don’t want to wear the bauble then throw it away!”

“No! The gypsy promised that it would save me! Why should I get rid of it because some temperamental old man hates me?”

“From what, Sofia? What are you so afraid of?”

“A...a terrible fate! I don’t want a terrible fate!” 

“Nothing is going to happen to you, you fool!” He pulled on her scarf again and she fell towards the sorcerer, but instead of falling to the ground, she fell into his arms.

“Let go of me! I need to know the truth!” She flailed but he tossed her over his shoulder like a bag of flour and carried the protesting princess back into the castle, her gypsy fabric and hair blocking her vision and so she instead called him names, pounding on his back as the doors slammed behind them.

“Quiet, Sofia or you’ll wake the castle.” He hissed “and you wouldn’t want daddy dearest to know you were sneaking off to the village again, would you?”

Her father would kill her if he knew. She was expressly forbidden from the village. She quieted instantly and she heard him say “Better.”

They ascended the stairs with her letting out an oof each time she bounced on his shoulder, hot tears of embarrassment stinging her eyes. She hated being treated like a child, and now she was even being punished as one. If only Cedric hadn’t caught her she would be closer to knowing the truth!

He tossed her on her bed roughly and she pulled all the fabrics so she could see the wizard. “Come with me then, I need to know Cedric! The gypsies will know why they gave me this stone! They can see the futur-”

“No one can see the future Sofia,  _ no one _ .” He left, slamming her bedroom door, and then she heard them shudder.

She realized he spelled them shut, and in her anger, she grabbed a pillow and screamed into it. Cedric was truly her worst enemy. Why did he hate her so much?


	8. A Truth, A Trick

The next day, while she was sketching in the gardens, Amber plopped down next to her sister in a sigh. “The tailor is finally finished with me, Sofia. I now have a perfect dress!” 

“He must need a break, he’s been with you for the last week, Amber.” She said inspecting a flower she had been drawing.

“You’ve been busy this week too, dear sister.” Amber hummed looking over her shoulder.

“Not quite, except for cards with Baileywick, and spending some time in the village.”

“and the man I saw leaving your room last night, hmmm?”

Sofia looked over at her sister and tried to mask her surprise. It wasn’t unusual for men to be leaving Amber’s bed, but Sofia didn’t have the same luck. “What were you doing snooping around my room, Amber?”

“A lovers quarrel?” She had a cat who ate the canary smile on her face and she looked up at the trees “I am surprised the whole castle didn’t wake.”

“He wasn’t my lover Amber, he was jus-”

“Oh I know who he is, don’t worry, your secret is safe with me.”

“There’s no secret to keep, you don’t even understa-”

“Oh I understand, I just wish I would have known sooner, then we could have swapped stories. I spent all this time thinking you were a prude.”

“Amber, you aren’t listening to me,” Sofia said finally setting her sketchbook down on her lap and turning to her sister, but she had left, waving to her and humming a spritely tune.

Baileywick  _ was _ right about one thing. She really did never know who was watching her. Sofia looked up and scanned the gardens trying to see if anyone else was watching her today, but there was no one of interest. Only a few gardeners and Baileywick who was passing Amber on his way to meet Sofia.

“You look in better spirits today Princess Sofia.” Baileywick said peering down at her sketch of some lilies. “Everything patched up?”

“Sort of, but Baileywick I have a question about the war...”

He dodged the question, looking rather nervous “History is not my strong suit either, princess, I am afraid if you want to learn anything about that war, you’ll have to find your old history tutor.”

Just thinking about Professor Falcone made her sleepy and she closed her sketchbook, sliding over a little to provide room on the stone bench for Baileywick, even though she knew he wouldn’t take it. “Is he the  _ only _ person that would know about the war? Surely as the royal advisor, you’d know something.”

“Attitudes from the war still are very relevant today, it’s why your friend Lucinda lives all the way out in the woods, and why Cedric is always so cranky,” Baileywick looked over at the castle tower where Cedric lived and sighed “Well maybe just part of it.”

Sofia giggled and turned back to look at the tower as well “I think he’s just very lonely, and everyone thinks he’s some kind of jester.”

“He has a friend now, doesn’t he?”

Sofia turned to Baileywick “Who?”

He smiled down at the small princess “Why you, of course, princess!”

“I don’t think so Baileywick, I think I’m more of a bother than a friend. He always yells at me. You’re my friend Baileywick, and I have Jade and Lucinda from the village.”

“I know princess, but ever since the trouble that happened a few years back you’ve become more a shut-in than ever before.” He pulled out his watch and checked the time “You deserve a little more than that you know, maybe a prince?” He waggled his eyebrows suggestively and she made a noise of disgust.

“So you think dusty old Falcone might know more about the war?”

“Wish you had paid attention in your classes now, don’t you?” He scolded her before offering his arm to her. “Come, Princess, maybe your father knows where your old history tutor has gone.”

* * *

 

Her father looked up at her suspiciously over a pile of scrolls “I thought you hated history, Sofia, and now you want to know where that old coot has gone?”

“Yes, well, I am a late bloomer.” She tittered nervously looking over at Baileywick to bail her out, but Baileywick was already immersed in looking at some scrolls himself.

“I suppose it’s good that you’re taking an interest in anything lately, so I’ll take it!” Her father pointed a rolled up scroll at her “He is three villages over, about a day’s ride. I just had him here a few weeks ago to advise on some issues, you should have asked your questions then.”

“I didn’t know, father.” She squeezed her hands together in front of her. He waved the scroll at Baileywick.

“Get a carriage ready for the princess, Baileywick, maybe we’ll make a historian of her yet.”

“Oh thank you, father, you don’t know what this means to me!”

“You’re right, I don’t, but you’ve been moping around and it’s driving your mother crazy, so anything to make you happy, poppet.” He finally unrolled the scroll he had been swinging around like a sword and sighed at the cursive DECREE at the top before beginning to read.

“Come, princess, let’s get your carriage ready.” Baileywick said from the doorway

“To  _ where _ exactly is the princess going?” Cedric inquired entering the study.

“She’s taken an interest in history, Cedric, do you care to go with her?” The King replied inking his quill.

“Your majesty, I am not a babysi-”

“It’s okay, father, I’m sure Cedric has lots of important things to do. Baileywick can come with me, right?”

Her father looked up alarmed. Baileywick protested softly beside her before the King looked back at the royal sorcerer “Cedric isn’t doing anything important, but Baileywick always  _ is _ . Cedric, you go with the Princess to find her old history tutor.”

“Your maj-”

“Do you have any objections that you wish to voice Cedric?”

“No, your majesty.”

“Good, it’s settled. I will feel much better having someone around to look after Sofia.”

Sofia grimaced knowing that the only looks she would be getting from Cedric were glares.

“ _ Princess,  _ if you’ll allow me to gather my things so we can depart.”

Baileywick followed her out to the carriages and she looked up at the royal advisor with pleading eyes. “Baileywick, Cedric is going to kill me. He hates me, can’t you just come with me instead?”

Baileywick sighed and gave her a pitying look “I have so much to do before the ball, and you know summer is busy. If you want to see your history tutor, you’ll have to go with Cedric.” She felt her heart drop to her feet. “It might be a good thing, maybe you’ll become his friend after all.”

“Baileywick,” she whined, “It’s not about making friends, it’s about getting answers.”

The carriage pulled but behind her and Baileywick began to ascend the stairs back up to the castle, passing Cedric who looked murderous. 

“Why can’t you do both?” Baileywick shrugged and disappeared back into the castle.

“Both what?”

“Nothing.” She sighed and turned towards the carriage.

Answers were getting harder and harder to get, and she was sure that a day-long carriage ride with Baileywick meant one of them was going to kill the other before they reached her history professor.

The plush interiors of the carriage were darkened by the mood of the two inhabitants. She was sulking on one velvet bench, and him on the other. The mid afternoon sunlight sometimes beaming in through the compartment windows and catching her light blue dress. 

“I was convinced you were off to try and get to the gypsies again.” He said after a good hour in the carriage.

“No, I am just curious about some things.”  
  
“As is your wont lately,” he grumbled across from her.

“Can you blame me?”

“I can.”

She huffed. Why was she saddled with such a difficult man? He made her uncomfortable and angry, but yet they were constantly being thrown together. Why did he hate her so much? She thought she was a great deal nicer than many court ladies she had met. She certainly was nice to him.

“Why are you going to see this man anyways? Are you so inept, that you couldn-”  
  
“I already read the book on the subject, Cedric. It wasn’t in there.”

It was his turn to huff, but she knew if she didn’t start being the better princess, that the whole trip would be ruined by them eating at each other. “Ok,” she sighed and looked across the carriage at the dour man. “Listen, I’m sorry about last night, and I’m sorry you had to come with me. I didn’t want to bother you,  _ especially _ after last night.”

He waved her off and peered out the window, letting her apology hang in the air. “You always put me in difficult situations, Princess.” He seemed to be thinking, his fingers fiddling with the wide cuff of his robes. “I don’t wish harm to come to you, even if you sorely try my patience.”

“I’m sor-”

“I can’t go through what happened a few years ago again. It haunts me.” He cut her off sharply “and yet you continue to look for trouble, as if you, yourself had already forgotten!” 

Her kidnapping still was a touchy subject for her family, and even for Baileywick. It was Cedric who had saved her, cut up and crying in an empty barn, and it had been Cedric who had disposed of her kidnapper. It was the first time she had realized that Cedric was more than her gloomy entertainer. She wondered if that was the reason he always put her on edge, she had seen his power and worried that it was going to be used against her. 

“I need answers, Cedric. The truth is the truth, whether it's from you, from gypsies, or from boring old Professor Falcone. Something just doesn’t sit well with me lately. I know it sounds stupid, but I feel like something is missing.”

“Then I will give you all of them and we can turn this carriage around.”  
  
Sofia clasped her hands together tightly, pushing down the feeling of frustration she had with the old sorcerer. She tried to give her decision an air of finality. “No, it’ll be good to leave the castle for a few days.”

“You doubt me?” 

“I do.”  
  
“Pity,” he turned back to look at her, his dark eyes burning “just when I thought you understood what I was capable of.”

She hated that he always tried to intimidate her. She knew he was just trying to get her to agree with her so this little adventure could be over. Sofia crossed her arms defensively and tilted her chin up. There was no way she would be backing down from this adventure, not when she went through all the trouble to read a dusty book and get her father’s permission. She would find out with the villagers hated magical folk, and if some old man a day away knew why, she’d ask him. No matter what.


	9. A Dinner, A Daring Escape

A thud woke her, followed by the carriage shaking. She hadn’t even realized she fell asleep in her snit over Cedric. There was no more light in the carriage, it had fallen dark at some point, and she could only see her cabin partner every so often when moonlight happened to fall inside.

“Cedric,” She hated the dark “Cedric are you awake?” 

He lit his wand, emitting a soft glow and she relaxed back into her seat a little. “Good enough?”

The carriage jolted forward and she fell onto the floor between them with a soft oof. Cedric rolled his eyes and offered his hand to help her up when the whole carriage tilted to the right, tossing him on top of her, slamming the both of them against the side. With a thud, they came to a stop.

“Princess?” He asked trying to disentangle himself from her, and the fabric of her dress.

“I’m okay, just a little. Ow! Not on my hair!”

“You have too much hair then! Hold still, I think a wheel must have broken.”

He unhooked the latch of the door and they both slid out of the carriage into a ditch, Sofia crying out as she fell onto the cold ground of the forest, and Cedric on top of her. She was crushed between the ground and the heavy sorcerer atop her.

“Where are the coachmen? This is unacceptable.” He said getting off of her and peering around to the front where the two horses stood, nickering and shaking their heads in annoyance. 

She frowned when she realized he wasn’t going to help her up and helped herself off the ground, shaking a few leaves loose on her dress and stomping over to tell Cedric that a sorcerer was to assist a princess off the ground, not just leave her in a ditch. “Sofia?” He called from the front of the carriage.

That was odd, he only used her name when he was angry with her. It wasn’t like it was her fault that the carriage lost a wheel. She looked up to see the full moon, trying to calm herself before trudging over to get scolded by her sorcerer.

He held his wand near his face like a candle. His black hair shone in the moonlight. He looked regal, and she was struck by how at home he looked in the dark forest.

“Where are the coachmen?” She asked coming closer but he didn’t reply. 

He shrugged off his purple robe and put it around her shoulders, taking the hood and pulling it down over her eyes. “Do not speak, I fear we may not be alone.”  
  
He grabbed two mice that were scampering on the seat of the stagecoach and pulled them up to his eyes by their tails. “Are those…” She whispered, but it only earned her a glare.

Right, be quiet. There might be other people watching them. Baileywick’ warnings rang in her ear. She covered her mouth with her hands and he set them back down. “Do not touch the horses, do not grab your things, walk with me and keep your head down.”

The danger of the situation struck her suddenly and her fear manifested all at once. She was frozen in her spot. Were they going to be attacked? They were stuck in the middle of the forest in the middle of the night with no horses or sense of direction. 

He turned back to her and growled in irritation, grabbing her arm and yanking her forward with him. “Move, you fool.”

There was the cracking of wood and the horses crying out in fear and she turned to look backward but the sorcerer tugged her forward “Don’t look back, don’t you dare.”

His pace was quick and she would find herself lagging behind, jogging to catch up, but he followed the road they had been taking, his wand out in front of him like a makeshift sword, lighting the path as they walked, but she could hear someone following them, every so often over the sound of her breath she heard twigs breaking and leaves crunching off to the sides.

“You must be well off, mage, to be in a coach like that?” A voice said ahead of them and she was quickly pushed behind Cedric.

Her body was shaking and she grabbed the fabric of his linen undershirt.

“Better off than you, I suppose,” Cedric replied, “Was there any particular reason you needed to destroy our coach and turn our men into mice?”

“We were hoping for treasure, but instead only found some clothes and books, our mistake.” The person’s voice reminded her of James, a whiny teenager who was upset that no one was listening to his stories of the hunt. “Is that your wife, or your mistress then, Cedric, sorcerer of Enchancia.”

“I am sure if I married, Leonard, you would be the first to know of it. This is Sofia, a governess, and a good lay.”

Her face flushed scarlet and she pulled her hood downwards to hide her face. She wanted to hit him for being so crude but she knew if she moved their cover would be blown. She peeked from underneath the hood to see a lithe man who wore little to nothing. His skin pale and dirty in the moonlight, his hair looked almost white, but his beauty was marred by the muddiness of his appearance. She could see twigs and sticks sticking out from every which direction, and the only thing keeping his modesty was a piece of cloth tied around his waist.

“Where are you and your  _ good lay _ going this fine evening?” His voice got nearer and she felt a pair of hands on her shoulder and she was shoved again behind Cedric.

“Do not touch what isn’t yours, and we are visiting a scholar in the next town.” His voice had the same irritated edge that he got when speaking to her.

“There’s something strange about your good lay, Cedric, sorcerer of Enchancia.” Leonard said and she felt someone yanking on the back of her robe. “Something about her makes me uneasy. Is she a mage?”

“I said she was a governess, would a governess be a mage?”

“Come Cedric, we have not seen each other in ages, if you dine with me, my people shall let you pass in peace.”

“We are expected-”

“And they shall see you! After dinner.” There was a rustling of leaves all around them, it sounded as if a breeze had kicked up the entire forest.

“We are outnumbered,  _ my dear _ . I am sure you would love to dine with my  _ dear old friend _ Leonard tonight.”

She nodded and wasn’t sure her legs were going to move, but they did, her breathing shallow and her hands shaking. How did Cedric know these people that destroyed their coach? Were they friendly? It certainly didn’t feel like it.

She began to undo the braid her hair was in, tossing her tiara to the ground and kicking some leaves to cover it, taking out every piece of jewelry she could find under her hood and putting it in some of the multitude of pockets within the robes. She slipped off her rings and stuck them in more pockets, eventually, her hair was wild and her appearance was plain, and she slid down her hood as they walked deeper into the woods.

The came upon a campfire surrounded by animals and men in brown cloaks, a few women who were cooking something over a fire and the soft tones of a flute playing something jaunty.

Cedric turned back to the princess and relaxed when he saw that she had done away with anything that gave off immediately that she was royalty. His hand found hers and pulled her closer to him. There was a warmth to his touch that was hotter than any fire. Her breath caught in her throat, no, it was nothing, she was just happy to have an ally. She smiled nervously as they entered the circle of men surrounding the fire.

A house, if it was a house, she was not sure, which looked more like a cave with a door and some windows were on the other side of the fire and Leonard passed through the campsite and into the house. “Come Cedric and the good lay, let us eat.”

She blushed furiously, opening and closing her mouth as anger roiled around her. Cedric looked over her once more before sliding his wand into one of her pockets. His face was inches from hers, and she realized it was concern that she saw in his eyes.

“Don’t.” He spat “Don’t open your mouth like you want to, just let me do all the talking and we might get out here alive.”

That plan, of course, went sour very quickly as they sat down at a large table that was more of a large slab of wood on some rocks. Leonard, a young man with long, silvery blonde hair, matted with dirt and twigs looked like he had risen from the forest floor to invite them to dinner, and had the manners of the forest floor to match. “Is she a mute? Can a governess be a mute if not a mage?”

Cedric squeezed her thigh painfully, requiring her to respond.

“No,” she replied looking down at the empty plate.

“She is shy around someone that destroys her coach and puts her life in danger, I’m sure you understand, Leonard.” 

“Is that true Miss Good Lay?” 

Her hands balled into fists under the table. She was a virgin! The only laying she did was to go to sleep! What is virtue if some random half-naked man was going to call her easy over and over again? She fumed, but another squeeze from Cedric and she swallowed her anger along with her pride. “It was alarming,” She smiled “But with my dear Cedric, I knew we weren’t truly in danger.”

Food, whatever was being cooked on a stick outside, was set in front of them a blackened pile of meat with some apples and mead by a naked woman with wild brown hair. He gestured to the food and Sofia tried to hide her grimace but Leonard caught it.

“It’s deer, nothing disgusting.”

Sofia disagreed, but smiled politely and waited to be served, Cedric, suddenly realizing that she was waiting for a servant quickly served her himself and kicked her under the table. Her eyes widened and clenched her teeth. 

“How long have you had this pretty little thing, Cedric?” Leonard asked with his mouth full and Sofia’s stomach felt queasy as food dropped out of his mouth and onto the table. 

Another problem arose, there were no utensils. She looked at the food and then over at Cedric who was picking the food apart with his fingers. What was he doing? She thought he was civilized and here he was ripping apart meat with his fingers!

“Why have you brought us to your hovel, Leonard?” Cedric replied sharply

“Had I known it was you, I wouldn’t have been so gentle on the carriage, Cedric, it’s always fun to rile you up.” Leonard was sucking the oils from the meat off his thumb “I thought it was just some pompous royal as it usually is in those gaudy gold boxes.” He noticed the untouched food on Sofia’s plate and pushed it towards her “Eat girl.”

She picked up a piece of meat and began to tear it apart which seemed to satisfy the man across from her enough. He stopped watching her so closely and continued eating his own food.

“Leonard is a forest sprite.” Cedric explained with great pleasure “Which explains his table manners.” 

“We prefer to call ourselves forest  _ mages _ , not forest sprites, and we are much more powerful than your lover here.” Leonard smirked, “much to his dismay.”

“Oh? I don’t know much about magic...” She trailed off

“Surprising, since you’re magical yourself.” He shrugged and continued “Well, natural magic is closer in the forest, stronger than the supplemental magic that our poor sod Cedric uses.”

“What’s the difference?” Sofia asked curiously

Cedric laughed nervously “Always asking questions! Don’t be rude.” and kicked her again under the table.

“The very earth gives us power, Cedric has to rely on concentrated earth, stones, gems, the like, to give him power. Expensive tastes, for a sorcerer.”

“We really  _ must _ be going now.” Cedric stood up abruptly, pulling her up with him and she dropped the food she had been picking at.

“Which is why sorcers keep so close to the royal family, it is their wealth that makes them stronger...or weaker, depending on the stone.”  Leonard kicked back, putting his dirty feet on the table and out of nothing he pulled a glittering tiara. The one she had discarded on their way here. He had a smug smile on his face as he tossed it across the table at her. “Isn’t that why he’s near you, Princess Sofia?”

The tiara landed on the table with a thunk and the table abruptly caught fire. She had never seen Cedric panic, but she felt it acutely, he yanked her away from the flames, his arm going around her waist as they tried to flee, but she was pulled in another direction. 

Leonard had caught the sleeve of her robe and was pulling her towards him, the fire quickly doused with a wave of his hand. “You took our lands, you killed our people, and now I wish to return the favor, Princess.”

His other hand grabbed her wrist but he yelped pulling away, burned by the touch. He held his blackened hand. “You burned me, you bitch!”

As he recoiled Cedric yanked her away, tugging her out of the house as Cedric was setting furniture ablaze behind them. His wand strikes were vicious, and the house caught like tinder, chairs, and tables going up easily in flames. 

She could hear screaming outside, her eyes watered from all the smoke. The sprites, or mages, were panicking as the hovel in the hill was beginning to smoke out the windows. “Master?” cried a sprite as they passed.

She had no idea what happened to Leonard, she hoped he got out, but she doubted it. The blaze lighted their escape, and they disappeared deep into the forest. Sofia hoped Cedric knew the way. Her lungs hurt as they ran, she couldn’t stop coughing and her eyes burned. The forest was a blur and the only way she knew was that the voices behind them were getting quieter. She dropped to her knees, her body shaking, coughing so hard she thought she was going to be sick.

“Come on girl, nowhere in the forest is safe, not even for a second!” 

“I can’t breathe!” She wheezed, coughing. Her corset digging into her ribcage as she took heavy laborious breaths. She pawed at her bodice, gulping down air that never filled her lungs. “Help me...help me get this off!”

“Now?” His voice was shrill and she could hear him shifting his weight impatiently, the leaves kicking up around his feet.

“Now!” She shook her head to get rid of some of the tears clouding her vision and started shrugging off the robe.

There were voices coming near them, the forest sky lighting up with spells that streaked above them like lightning. She began to grope for the ties to her dress. She could never get them on, how in the blazes was she going to get it off?

“Damn it all, Sofia.” He pushed her to the ground, grabbing his wand out of her pocket and turning her over so she was face down in the forest.

He ripped through her overdress and she made a whining noise realizing he had ruined the fabric and then all the strings of her corset released at once. She took a great big gasping breath of air, filled with leaves and dust and she was yanked so hard off the ground she was sure her arm had ripped off.

She had tripped only a few times until they finally made it back to the road, both wheezing and doubled over as they still walked forward, each one tugging the other forward. She was left in only a shift and her petticoats underneath his robe, barefoot and sobbing, the pain in her feet matching the pain in her head and lungs as Cedric reassured her that things were going to be fine if she would just be quiet and stop her needless sobbing.

Eventually, they reached a village, and wordlessly he tied the robe shut around her, pulling the oversized hood down over her eyes, locating an inn and shooing her inside.


	10. A Tea, A Tale

Cedric, who managed to look both annoyed and alarmed at the same time lit the fire with a swish of his wand before collapsing into a ratty chair near the fire, looking back at the Princess with sticks in her hair and soot on her face while wearing next to nothing.

“I am starting to favor Princess Amber over you Princess Sofia.” He said pouring himself some wine before handing her a cup as well “I’d rather have a tart to look after instead of a troublemaker.”

She took a gulp of wine and grimaced. Bitter and dry, she never liked wine. “He said I was magical.”

“You are,” Cedric looked away from her and out the window “You are.”

“Is my father magical?”

“No one is in the royal family, no one but you.”

Cedric looked as bad as she, his hair flying in all directions, his shirt singed on the sleeves, and his boots covered in mud. The linen undershirt he had worn, had come slightly untied, revealing those same ink spots she had seen the other night, they were larger, and going down his torso in a line, one spot after another. He cleared his throat when he noticed she was studying him, and she had the grace to look away, changing the subject.

“Are you using my family for our gems? I me-”

“I am owned by your family, Princess, I did not ask to be employed to use your crystals.” He took another drink “Clueless as ever, do you think I wish to be around children all my life? Conjuring things to amuse your idiot of a father and his court?”

“Oh.” Sofia began to tug a stick out of her hair and looked down at her goblet.

“I did-”  
  
“I know that you’re more than just...just entertainment, Cedric. I just...I’m sorry, I didn’t even want you to come with me.” Sofia set her goblet down on the floor and laid down on the lumpy cot. Her body hurt, her heart hurt, breathing hurt, and now Cedric was angry with her. Could the night get any more trying?

“Princess,” he sounded as tired as she felt “My anger is not directed towards you.”

She ignored him, trying to rehash the events of the night before in her mind. The table catching on fire, and then Leonard recoiling in pain, holding his burnt hand and screaming at her, his hand blistering and blackened after he touched her.

“I hurt him,” she said thickly, her emotions a wreck, she was angry and upset and exhausted “when he touched me.”

“When emotions run high, even I can lose control of my magic.”

“I didn’t mean to hurt him,” she began to cry in earnest, covering her face with her hands. “even if he hated me. I didn’t mean it.”

“There’s nothing to cry about, Sofia.” The cot dipped as he sat beside her “Here,” he conjured up a small glass orb for her “you like these, don’t you?”

She split her fingers to see him holding it out to her and she reached out to grab it but then hesitated. What if she burned people she touched now? “What if - _sniff_ \- what if I hurt you too, Cedric?”

He grabbed her wrist and turned her hand over, laying the orb in her palm, their fingers brushing and to her surprise, he didn’t flinch. “See? Nothing. Calm down, you’re not cursed with anything other than overdramatics.”

She rolled the orb up and down her palm before inspecting it between her fingers. “Teach me how to control it.”

“Sofia,” his voice held a warning.

“What if I hurt you?” She said sitting up frantically “What if I hurt my family? What if-”

“Fine! Only for your protection, and maybe mine.” He said, getting up from the bed and pacing before the fire “Your father will have my head if he knew. You’ll be the death of me girl.”

A small smile graced her features and he seemed to relax a little. “I should write a letter to father if word-”

“You seemed concerned for a man who tried to kill you, but if you write a letter to your father, they’ll all be dead.”

“My father would-”

“Your father has, and will again.” There was a hint of steel in his voice, he broke eye contact with her abruptly. Cedric pulled out one of her rings from a pocket in his robes and inspected it before tossing it to her “Let’s get down to business then.”  
  
Sofia held up one of her diamond rings and inspected it in the firelight. Was it a magic ring? Did it hold powers? He seemed to read her thoughts “Not magical, just valuable. We need to exchange it for coin so we can rent a horse or two. If you’re so dead set on seeing this scholar, we’re not going to walk there.”

“Now?”

“Tomorrow.” He corrected, a wave of his wand and the ratty chair turned into a ratty bed.

“You’re sleeping in here?” She asked suddenly remembering her state of undress and pulling up a moth-eaten blanket to her chin.

“Yes, and perhaps I shall take my liberties with you while I’m at it?” He grabbed one of the pillows off the bed and sneered. “You’re safe with me, princess, I wouldn’t touch you, curse or no.”

She knew he said that to reassure her, but it hurt more than it comforted. She frowned, but any retort to that might make her seem like she had feelings for him. She didn’t. She definitely didn’t.

He peered out the window once more to make sure that danger had passed, and spelled the door as he had done the night when she had attempted to run and meet the gypsies. He flopped down on the bed and pulled his robes around him, facing away from her. “Sleep, and don’t both-”

“Cedric?” She called, laying down and curling up in the cot.

“Go to sleep.”

“Thank you, for everything.”

He did not respond, but he did not scold her either.

She fell asleep with the orb of light next to her lips, hoping that it would keep both the darkness and the bad dreams away.

* * *

She ate her breakfast, a stale biscuit, on horseback, and it was a cloudy spring day. She was still in her underdress, her corset gone, her petticoat peeking through Cedric’s robes. Far from royal looking, the people they bought the horse from assumed they had stolen the jewelry and they were going to steal the horses too. Cedric didn’t correct them.

The short journey to see the old history tutor about an old forgotten war had now become an adventure. She was utterly exhausted and felt disgusting. Cedric kept looking back at her every so often as they leisurely trotted through the countryside. She was in no hurry, the silence between the two of them was comforting and she enjoyed the early spring views of farmers and flowers.

“Keep up Princess, or do you want to spend another night in an inn?”

Her eyes widened and she snapped the reigns of the horse, changing the leisurely walk into a lively trot. She had not slept at all last night, the bed had to have been made out of lumpy rocks. He said he had charmed it to be more comfortable near sunrise, but she called him a liar, earning her an earful of insults.

It was near sundown when they finally arrived at the cottage on the edge of a village overlooking wheat fields. Cedric watched her slide off her horse and snorted as she fell clumsily to the ground. “Don’t laugh at me!”

“It’s hard not to.” He said tying the horses up to a nearby fence post as she unlatched the gate to the cottage.

“I hope he’s still alive,” she muttered as they walked up the stone path to the run down cottage. Its' straw roof had holes in it, patched with cloth, and sometimes wood. The stone walls were overrun with moss, and it looked like it had been built by nature, and not by man.  
  
“Your father just said he was still alive, do you have memory loss?”

“I don’t have memory loss,” she snapped “I just don’t see any light in the windows, and we’re barely alive coming to meet him.”

“The forest sprites have nothing against some doddering old tutor. They do have something against the daughter of a man who exiled them.” He said quietly and she glared up at him about to retort, but he was already knocking at the door.

There was a dog barking and then someone shouting. Sofia took a step back from the door and shuffled behind the sorcerer who looked back at her like she had grown a second head. Wasn’t it her idea to visit him?

The door swung open to a portly old man and a huge dog. The latter of which ran outside and started jumping and barking at the two strangers, knocking Sofia into Cedric who pushed her back upright.

“Ulysses! Get down! Well I’ll be damned, if it isn’t that cranky old sorcerer Cedric, and...Ulysses! Stop your barking! Oh! It’s you, Princess!” The old man tried to get down and kneel but he stopped halfway, bowing lowly to the two of them.

“Can we come in?” She asked petting the beastly dog on the head as it slobbered all over Cedric’s robes, earning an exasperated sigh from her companion.

Her old tutor stepped aside. He didn’t look much different than when she had last seen him. A mop of curly grey hair, a round stomach from too many dinners, a big red nose from too much port, and friendly green eyes. “Yes, yes, of course, let me get some tea ready. Ulysses! Blasted dog, doesn’t listen to a damn thing.”

Gone was her droning history tutor, and instead she was met with a lively old man who lived in a house that must be made out of books. She couldn’t find a clear part of the wall anywhere, or table for that matter. Manuscripts, scrolls, books that were halfway falling apart were absolutely everywhere. She was in awe. It must have as many books as the royal library in an eighth of the space.

Cedric pointed to two chairs that faced a small window looking out over their horses. “Sit.”

She looked up at him and crossed her arms, throwing herself on the chair in a pout, but he chose to ignore it, sitting next to her and examining a few books on the table. “Right, right, just clear that off then so I can put the tea somewhere. Are you hungry? Of course you’re hungry! Right. Ulysses! No! Ah well, I had some biscuits left but the dog just ate ‘em.”

Sofia smiled prettily “Just tea will be fine for now.”

“Ah right, Princess Sofia you always liked your tea with lots of sugar, I didn’t know a royal was coming or I would’ve cleaned a little.”

“Please don’t worry on my account, Professor Falcone.” Sofia said and started moving some books around to find a worn wooden table underneath all of the books about knee height. “Tea and some good company. I have a few questions that I know you’ll be able to answer.”

“Me? Princess Sofia, you always hated history, you said to me, I’ll never forget it, right - Ulysses! Go lay down! - History is for boring old men like me, hah! and now you’ve come ‘round just to ask about it. My how time changes things.” He set the tea tray down between them and collapsed on the couch. He sighed, and then looked alarmed, attempting to get back up. “Ah right, the fi-”

Cedric, annoyed with waiting, lit the fireplace himself and began to pour himself tea. “Ask your question, princess.”

“Professor-”

“Ah please, princess, just call me Arthur. We’re all friends here, right Cedric?”

Cedric sighed and looked over at her. “Of course,” he drawled.

She waited until the giant dog settled on the rug next to the door before she began. “Arthur, I had some questions about The Last War.” She began nervously and there was a clatter of porcelain next to her, she flinched, waiting for Cedric to insult her, but nothing came.

“Right, well, you know it’s not talked about for a reason, princess, it was a real tragedy on both accounts, wouldn’t be good for people to know what Enchancia did to Scyvyas.”

“Why?”

“War is a terrible, messy, awful thing, princess. Lucky you haven’t seen it! After Duchess Alexandria was kidnapped, or perhaps killed, no one can be sure, King Roland the Third, your dad, he was out for blood, that was your aunt, but you would’ve never met her, and at the time, the magical folk seemed to be the likely culprit.”

“Were they? Who kidnapped her? It sa-”

“If only you had shown such interest when I was in your father’s employ! Already a lot of tensions between non-magical folk and the magical people of Scyvyas were around, with the disappearance of the Duchess, it was all angry mobs and murder. No one knew who _really_ got to the duchess, there. Wizards, however, they looked right for the blame. Envy, greed, or revenge drove them to war with  Scyvyas in hopes of attaining the power that the wizards seemed to have.”

“What people didn’t understand, princess,” Cedric cut in beside her “is that killing a wizard doesn’t give you the powers of a wizard, and a wizard’s gold disappears when he does.”

“Right! Scyvyas was already a small kingdom, mostly forest and a few villages, Enchancia is hundreds of times bigger. Wizards are scholarly like people, you know, not warlike. It was no contest. They signed a peace treaty as soon as they could.”

“If the war was easily won, then why do people still hate sorcerers?”  
  
“Fear, it’s plain ol’ fear. And for good reason lately, eh, Cedric? Lotsa attacks, lotsa gypsies, I don’t even want to go to the village to get food knowing how many people have died due to magic folk roaming around, murdering, stealing...”

“How long?” She asked, ignoring the obvious prejudice even her teacher had against wizards, “How long since the war ended?”

“Oh, it’ll be a hundred years soon, give or take.”

She finally picked up her tea and took a sip, mulling over the information and listening to the dog snoring in the corner. “Wizards are so powerful, why didn’t they use magic to win the war? Surely one sorcerer could overcome a few measly peasants. Cedric-”

“I believe the problem was that they didn’t have any way to make magic after a while, the first few months, things were lookin’ bad for Enchancia, but suddenly, it all turned around, and it was a massacre, so many senseless murders, and they were all defenseless in the end.”

“Every spell comes at a cost,” Cedric said quietly.

Her eyes looked down at the bag she had been carrying that contained the orb he conjured last night. The cost was too high for Scyvyas to pay.

“Finally the King of Scyvyas surrendered all that he had to the King of Enchancia. Gotta save the people, no matter the cost. They signed that peace treaty an’ gave everything to Enchancia to save Scyvyas, everything they had left, but it wasn’t enough. Now Scyvyas doesn’t exist anymore, split between Enchancia and...ah, that kingdom, Ostrana. To the north, well to the north now. Your father was greedy back then, eh? Oh well. To the victor goes the spoils, and that’s why you have your sorcerer now, so not all bad, eh?”

A lump formed in her throat “Why? What does _my_ sorcerer have to do with any of this?” She was suddenly beginning to connect the dots. The king surrendered all that he had to save his people.

“Cedric, surely you told the girl.” The old historian said looking at the sorcerer disappointed. “You two have always been close. I was sure!”

She turned towards Cedric who was looking away from her “Tell me what?”

“Why, Cedric is not just some random old man, tell her! She deserves to know!” He gestured towards the princess.

“I am everything the king had to give. I am the former prince of Scyvyas, and now I am your court jester.”

His admission was followed by the sound of porcelain shattering, and a quiet sorry from Princess Sofia. The room was silent, save for the dog snoring.


	11. A Tailor, A Teacher

Baileywick looked like he had seen a ghost when they arrived back at the castle two days later. Baileywick clutched his chest as Cedric helped her off the horse, acutely aware he was being watched, and thus had to be polite. 

She was truly a sight to behold on her return. Her clothing missing, her hair a wild mane of tangles with a mixture of dirt and soot smudged on her face. He rushed down the steps to meet them, “Princess Sofia! What on earth-”  
  
“Bandits, on the road.” Cedric said dismounting before she could clumsily slide off her horse.

“Oh Baileywick!” She said wiggling down off the horse who was impatient to be rid of its poor rider. Hands came up and grabbed her by the waist, setting her on the ground. Baileywick pulled her hood off her head and checked her over for injuries “The coachmen are missing!”

She had rehearsed this about twenty times on the way back from the Inn they had stayed at the night before. Cedric told her that her dramatics were always so well rehearsed there was no need to practice. She would keep the gypsies safe. If Cedric was right, and her father would kill them, it would put her further away from seeking the truth about the stone around her neck. She would protect them as best she could, and in this case, she had to act like Amber: dramatic.

“And you’re sure you’re alright?” He pulled open the blue robes and saw that she was missing her dress and her jewelry. 

“I’m alright, but my...my tiara!” she couldn’t cry so instead she just hid her face in her hands. 

“Cedric!” Baileywick turned on the sorcerer quickly “Where were you when this happened? Why is she covered in mud?”

“Where was I? Don’t be stupid Baileywick, I’m the reason she’s missing her precious tiara instead of her life.”  She peeked through her fingers to see him ascending the large white stairs into the castle. The sorcerer looked back at her, he seemed amused, a smile played at his lips. “I have work to do, you can babysit her now.”

“Oh Princess,” sighed Baileywick “Let’s get you cleaned up. I thought for sure this trip would be good for you. You seemed so excited...but bandits! Goodness, the king will have to be informed.” 

“It was a good thing Baileywick, I learned so much about The Last War, and I learned how to ride a horse, sort of.” She said ascending the stairs back to her room, passing a few maids who looked concerned.

His voice sounded distant when he responded “Did you learn anything interesting?” 

Sofia looked around the hallway for a second and thought about talking about the war for a minute, but decided against it. Baileywick probably was there when they broke the peace treaty, he probably wrote it. Indignation swelled within her, but she ignored it for now. Her eyes met the old royal advisor’s and she beamed up at him “Professor Falcone has a  _ huge _ dog.”

The apathy on Baileywick’ face broke out into a smile “Alright, clean up before anyone else sees you.”

She shut her bedroom door behind her and tried not to think of Baileywick’ odd tone of voice when she mentioned The Last War, but there was something there. Perhaps there was a reason that none of the books mentioned what happened to Cedric’s kingdom. The secret she now possessed felt heavier than ever. Sofia let out a heavy sigh before heading to the bath, she could hear the maids filling the basin from here and hoped that after a warm bath and fresh clothes she would feel a little less defeated.

The last war was much more interesting than the books made them out to be, she turned over her stone necklace in the bath, wondering if it had any magic to it that Cedric could use to cast spells. Why did the mages of Scyvyas run out of power before the war had ended? Why did the king think that giving up his son to her family would keep their kingdom? She had a new understanding as to why Cedric hated her royal title. Her title was his once. 

She let the rock sink back under the water and began to wash. There must be a reason no one knew much about the war, and she intended to find out what that reason was. Another list on her ever-growing list of mysteries.

“Princess Sofia?” A maid called just outside her door. On no response from inside, she continued “The tailor is here to see you.”

Dripping wet still she put on a gown that stuck to her. She had completely forgotten about the tailor coming to visit. He must finally be done with Amber’s new wardrobe.

Amber was hanging off the tailor as he waited in Sofia’s room.  The old man nodded each time Amber asked for something more extravagant on her ball gown. “I apologize, I just got in from a trip.”

  
“Princess Amber, if you’ll excuse me.” The tailor bowed low before her and Amber looked over to her soggy sister.

“I see you made it back in one piece.” Amber said looking her over, her eyes caught the stone that was hanging down past her chest “What’s that?”  
  
Sofia quickly grabbed her necklace and shoved it underneath her white gown. “Something I saw in a village, it’s supposed to b-”

“My inspiration!” The tailor cried, cutting Sofia off and grabbing the silver chain around her neck. He pulled the stone up to his eyes and she could see the shine reflecting in them. “You’re like a water nymph, pure and glistening, this stone will be your dress, I shall make it so.”

“Surely another blue dress-”

“No, blue won’t do, this is your dress, do you know what kind of stone this is?” The tailor tugged on the chain and Sofia went along with it. “Why, I have not seen one in ages. Apopholyte! In this day and age, really!”

“I want one too, Sofia!” Amber whined from her doorway and Sofia looked away from her stone in the tailor’s hands to her sister who had curled her balls into little fists. “Tell me where you got it.”

“It was a gift, Amber, I don’t know where they got it.”

The tailor held the stone for another second before dropping it. “A gift? Someone must be looking out for you, Princess Sofia. Apopholyte is very rare.”

“Why?”

“No one knows where to even get it anymore! Not sin-.”

“I want one too!” Amber made a grab for it but the tailor swatted her off.

“I need to study this for my design, Princess Amber, your father will be the one to get you this stone, not your sister.”

Sofia willingly went through her dress fitting as the tailor remarked how much weight she had lost recently and how beautiful the dress would be. She usually fussed through her whole fitting, but she was too busy repeating the name of the stone in her mind: apopholyte, apopholyte. She wanted it burned into her memory. It was the first information she had gotten on the stone for years.

“Sofia!” Her father’s voice rattled the doors and the tailor poked her with a pin.

Baileywick quickly opened the doors for the King who looked furious. “Father, this isn’t appropriate! I’m getting a gown fitting!”  
  
“You were attacked? Baileywick says the coach is missing! And you didn’t bother to write?” Her father stopped in her doorway, his arms crossed. Her father always had a short temper, he said that it ran in the family.

“It doesn’t matter now, does it?” Sofia huffed, pushing her wet brown hair out of her eyes.

“Hold still,” the tailor swatted her in the stomach “I’ll poke you again.”

Baileywick was staring at the floor but her father’s eyes were blazing. She remembered what Cedric had said about the mages of the forest and didn’t want to cause their deaths even if they had tried to cause hers. She would stick to her bandit story to save them. Professor Falcone’s words echoed in her head “your father was greedy.” Greedy for what? Blood? Money? She couldn’t trust him on matters concerning mages, not after learning what he did to them before. 

“Well, who did it? I want their heads! Did they know you were the princess?” He roared and the tailor poked her again. She realized he was shaking in fear.

“Ow! Stop that!” She was rewarded with another irritated growl from the tailor “Father, Cedric saved my life, isn’t that enough? Do you want me to go back into the forest and find the robbers?”

“Cedric!” roared her father “What is the meaning of this?”

The tailor stopped what he was doing and stood up straight, waiting for everyone to leave them in peace. He let out a sigh of exasperation. “I think-”

Cedric suddenly appeared in the open doorway, his eyes leaving the angry king and settling on the princess. They widened in shock, and he quickly mimicked Baileywick at studying the marble floors. It was her turn to scream. Half dressed, mostly naked through her wet white gown, and thoroughly embarrassed. The youngest Princess of Enchancia lost her temper.   
  
“Out!” Her vanity rattled “Out! Everyone out!”

Her father matched her anger “Sofia, I’m not-”  
  
“No! You will speak once I have dressed!” Her brushes fell off the dresser and the tailor jumped slightly “Baileywick, out! Cedric, out!”

Sofia crossed the room in a fury, her father opening his mouth to protest, but she had enough. Cedric had seen her,  _ all _ of her. She could never look him in the eyes again. She grabbed both doors and slammed them shut. The mirror on her vanity cracked. She sighed and turned back, smiling at the tailor. “Now, where were we?”

“I should be going.” The tailor wheedled, “I really got all the measurements I needed, Princess.”

Cedric had seen her almost naked. Baileywick had seen her almost naked. Her face flushed red, and she buried her face in her hands. She would never see be able to face in the castle again.

* * *

 

“You broke the mirror,” Cedric said the next day, his finger running along the hairline fracture, that disappeared under his touch. “Have you done anything like this before?”  
  
“Probably,” Sofia replied “The mirror breaking...I thought it was because of the doors.”  
  
They had spent the entire morning in tense, stilted conversation. She was unable to overcome the embarrassment of being seen without much of anything on yesterday. So now she twisted her hands in her lap and stared intently at the black veins in her marble floors.

His wand was jammed into her field of view and she looked up to see him standing over her. “Forget about what happened yesterday, take the wand.”

It felt heavier than wood, and she inspected it to see that the stick he had been carrying was not a stick at all, but had the same gloss as stone. “It’s petrified wood.” He explained boredly. “Wood would catch on fire, just like metal”

She swished it and nothing happened. “Ok, I’m ready, how do I make magic?”

“Ignorant as usual, your tutors must have had a blast with you. Concentrate on the wand.”

“Ok.” She stared at it hard.  
  
“Close your eyes, Princess and actually concentrate.”  
  
She decided to hold it in both hands and out in front of her lest something happened, but that earned her a sigh from Cedric. She opened her eyes to snap at him for making fun of her, but he spoke first.

“Do you want to control your magic or not?”

“Yes!” Infuriating man. 

She closed her eyes and tried to picture the wand in her mind, rubbing her thumbs against it and slowly it felt like her fingers were falling asleep, a buzzing tingling feeling in the pads of her thumbs, followed by her palms. The stone grew warm in her hands and she opened to see what was happening only for it all to fade away as quickly as it started.

“In the future when you’re angry, concentrate on something, a hairbrush, a wand, a stone works best, or I don’t think the mirror will be the only thing broken.”

“Oh! I always have a stone.”

“Not that one,” his eyes dropped to her chest where he knew the stone was lying underneath her clothes “Inducing magic into that stone...some-”

“It’s apopholyte, says the tailor.”

“Ah yes, the tailor is also an expert on magic stones?” Cedric plucked the wand from her hands “How lucky he must be to be well versed in making pretty dresses and identifying gypsy rocks.”

She yanked it out from underneath her dress and studied it, looking up at the royal sorcerer who was admiring his handiwork on the mirror. He looked tired, dark circles stood out on his pale skin. “Do you think its apopholyte? You know what it is.”

“No one has seen an apopholyte for decades, probably not since the war, don’t waste my time with inane questions.” He was watching her in the mirror now, his eyes following her hands and she quickly hid the stone again.

She decided to change tactics, maybe if she generalized her questioning he would be more forthcoming. “Do different rocks do different things?” She asked “Or are all rocks the same.”

“Not all stones are alike, some concentrate different types of magic, some work better than others. Your tutor was right about the jewelry in the castle being a positive for me, gemstones, pure ones, like the ones you wear so uselessly in your tiara -” her hands flew up to her new tiara “- make complicated spells easier.” 

She took it off her head, inspecting the diamonds entwined in the vines of her new tiara she had gotten yesterday after dinner from her mother. “So this is like a wand?”

“The metal will burn you if you try, that’s why petrified wood is only for wands, you won’t burn your hand conducting magic.”

There was a knock on the door that made Cedric jump slightly and she wondered why he was so on edge today. Was it because he was teaching her magic without her parent’s permission? She got up and rushed to the door before he could, hoping to put him at ease.

Sofia opened the door only slightly to poke her head out. Baileywick was standing outside with a few letters for her on a silver platter. “Oh, Princess,” he said, slightly put off by the fact that she hadn’t invited him in. “I brought your letters.”

She didn’t open the door any further, but instead snatched the letters off the silver platter “Thank you Baileywick!”

He stood a little higher to see over her into the room but couldn’t see anything “Is there any-”  
  
She shut the door quickly and started to sort through her mail, happy to see Lucinda’s neat scrawl on the front of one. “ _To Sofia_ ” She ripped it open excitedly, hoping that this was her acceptance to the Solstice Ball. 

It wasn’t. There had been deaths in the village, first of chickens and livestock, and now a man had been reported missing. Sofia looked up at the sorcerer who was standing in front of her gigantic windows overlooking the gardens. She had to go visit Lucinda and make sure she was alright, but after what had happened the past few days, would her father even let her off the castle grounds? She would have to fall back on old habits. Sofia would sneak out to the village, but unlike last time, she would have help.

“Cedric?” She asked sweetly.

He turned back to her, his eyes narrowed “Absolutely not, whatever you’re asking absolutely not.”


	12. A Meeting, A Mistake

Sofia, dressed in drab browns with a scarf tied around to hide her signature brown hair followed Cedric down the stone path into the village. He would look back every few seconds to say something to her, but he thought better of it and kept walking forward, eventually they reached the town square and she made a beeline for the school. If anyone knew about the goings on about the village, it was Jade.

The laughter and screams of children got louder the closer to the one room school house she got, Cedric trailed behind her, a black cloud behind the dim radiance of the princess in the village. “Jade!” She waved and the plain looking woman looked up from the book she had been reading on the steps of the schoolhouse.

Jade was wearing a grey dress that had a bit of mud on the hem and one patch at about the right height as some of her kindergarteners. She stood up and dusted off her robes “Pr-

“Just Sofia today, please.” She looked around to make sure no one had noticed them and tugged Jade into the schoolhouse.

Cedric took a seat closest to the door and put his boots up on a desk as the school teacher shut the doors to the schoolhouse with an echoing thud. Jade gave her the same look as she would her students and Sofia shifted nervously under her gaze. “Alright,  _ just Sofia _ tell me what brings you here?”

Sofia reached into her dress and pulled out Lucinda’s letter. Jade scanned over it quickly before looking over at the sorcerer, then to her friend. “There have been some strange goings ons, but nothing that you should be concerned about. The livestock...that’s normal for the travelers.”

“Sure-”

“As for the man who has gone missing, Lucinda is overreacting, Mister Allenstadt is most likely away on business, as he usually is in the summer months.” Jade handed the letter back to her flippantly. “You don’t need to get your nose into it anyways, Sofia, last time you listened to Lucy, we all got in big trouble.”

Sofia made a small noise of protest, reading it once more before putting it away in her dress pocket.

“Princess Sofia’s natural inclination is to look for trouble.”

“Don’t I know it, Master Cedric.” Jade said looking out the window to check on the children playing “If you really want to know more, just go find Gallie, she’s been quite a shut-in lately, so it won’t be hard to find her.” 

Sofia looked pleadingly at Cedric who shook his head “Absolutely not, we’re not going to see the witch in the woods, and if you’re missing for dinner,  _ I _ will be for dinner.”

Lucinda hadn’t written anything about herself, she noted. Strange.

Jade changed the subject. “It looks like I’ll be able to come to the Solstice Ball after all. Won’t that be fun?”

Sofia wasn’t listening. She had to visit Lucinda and find out what the gypsies were up to. It might take her closer to meeting them, even if she had to drag Cedric along this time. “Sofia, don’t go looking for trouble, I mean it.” Jade said sternly “If anything happened like last time…”  
  
“Cedric is with me now, Jade, you worry too much,” Sofia replied, pointing back at the irritated man in the schoolhouse.

“He was with you then too, if I recall, and that didn’t stop them.” She mused, her eyes settling on the man who was crammed into a child’s seat.

He inhaled sharply. “I don’t have to listen to this,” Cedric snapped standing up and pushing open the doors “Come Princess.”

“Cedric! I’m not supposed to be the princess!” She chased after him, leaving Jade alone.

“She’s right,” he seethed as they snuck back into the castle through the gardens, Sofia rushed to keep up, his long strides leaving her far behind him “It didn’t stop them.”

Her kidnapping was always a sore spot for him. She wished Jade hadn’t brought it up, but she knew that her friend always blamed Cedric for what had happened. “There were six men, at the very least Cedric! I didn’t exp-”

“I was responsible for your welfare then, and I am responsible for it now.” Cedric turned on her and she stopped. 

“You saved us in the woods...from the forest sprite people.”

“Barely,” he looked over and saw Princess Amber rushing towards them “Do  _ not _ go to Lucinda’s house, and do  _ not _ go looking for those gypsies again Princess.”

He stalked off, fuming still over what Jade had said about him. Cedric was easy to watch, his dark black robes today were like a shadow moving across the rose gardens. She frowned and crossed her arms. Jade always knew everyone’s sore spot.  Jade always knew everything about everyone.

“Oooh,” Princess Amber teased “A lovers quarrel?” 

Amber was fanning herself and watching Cedric disappear into the castle, a smile playing at her lips. Was her sister always so transparent?

Sofia bit her lip and tried to compose herself before she responded. “Amber, that’s not what it _ever_ was.”  
  
“I spoke to Daddy about your apopholyte, he says that there’s no more left, they were all destroyed. Yours must be a fake.”

“Good,” Sofia replied tartly “Now you can stop asking after it.”

Amber’s fingers came to the chain around her neck, and tugged on it, but Sofia covered her sister’s hand with her own. “I thought it was a fake.”

“It’s too pretty to be a fake, I think Daddy lied.”

“You’ve never seen one until just yesterday Amber, don’t be greedy.” Sofia stepped back and her sister’s hand fell. Greedy just like father, she thought as Amber went back to fanning herself quickly, observing the gardens.

“I know gems Sofia, and that’s no fake.” She snapped her fan shut in anger and startled her sister “Anyways, I came to tell you Prince Hugo will be visiting next week. He probably missed me so much he couldn’t possibly stay away.”

Sofia’s insides twisted at the idea of the strange prince returning to the castle. Their conversation last time was unsettling. She didn’t want to face him again, not since she knew that his kingdom participated in destroying Scyvyas. Sofia hoped that he wouldn’t request her audience, in fact, she hoped the prince completely forgot she existed.   
  


* * *

  
He hadn’t. No one ever seemed to forget about Princess Sofia as of late. Cedric looked angry that Morgon had come along. He seethed between bites of food, glaring over at Morgon who was fixated on Sofia who in turn was fixated on her food. She had thought they were friends, but obviously, that was wrong. Everyone at the table could feel the animosity between the two royal sorcerers. Everyone was silent.

“Princess Sofia,” Morgon’s voice floated across the table, airy and frail “You seem unwell.”

“I believe,” Prince Hugo cut in “Morgon, you spooked her a bit during my party, Sofia is not very well versed in society yet, you see.”

“I feel something different about her lately, an affi-”

“Enough.” Cedric snapped “Is this dinner to be about Princess Sofia? Is there nothing else to converse about?”

“It’s true,” sighed Princess Amber on the other side of Sofia, putting her hand over her heart “I am feeling quite put out with all this talk about my sister, Prince Hugo, there are other princesses in this castle. It’s boring to talk about only one.”

Her mother’s eye widened and she looked over at the shameless Princess Amber who was throwing herself at the Prince’s feet. This dinner was careening for disaster. The food tasted bland and she was sure she was close to fainting, the sorcerer had no eyes but she was sure that he was staring at her. She could feel his gaze burning into her, and her sister’s jealousy made each bite hard to swallow.

“Too right,” her father clapped his hands together and the servants began to remove empty plates from the table “I  _ am _ bored.” He looked over at Cedric. “Show us some things you’ve been working on.”

Cedric, happy that there would be a way to get out of the not so polite stalemate at the table between the two princesses and the two strangers, got up and withdrew his wand from his sleeve, pointing up at the ceiling. At once the ornate white and gold fresco on the ceiling disappeared, replaced with an inky blackness. 

“Oh!” Sofia exclaimed, she knew what was coming next, this was one of her favorites. 

Like thousands of candles being lit at once, the night sky was recreated in the dining hall, the swirls of the heavens began to form into clouds of lights. The sky hung over top of them and she began to clap, followed by gasps from Prince Hugo and the servants.  
  
“This is not ne-”

The sky began to fall onto them like rushing water and then suddenly she wasn’t sitting at the table at all, she was in the middle of the heavens, surrounded by stars.

“Very good!” Her father’s voice sounded distant, there was no one here but her and the stars.

When she touched the stars they moved, other stars following them like they were connected, if they hit one another they plinked like glass, causing a rippling effect. This was no new trick to Sofia, it was a comforting one. After the kidnapping, he conjured the night sky to light her bedroom so she could sleep. It was never dark in her room, not for months.

A cluster of stars passed in front of her vision and she grabbed them, they felt much like the orbs he made for her. There was a clattering that echoed in the darkness, and all the stars went out at once. The darkness that held the stars was suffocating

Her heart stopped. She hated the dark more than anything. “Cedric?” The lights?” Her voice sounded shaky.

“Allow me, Princess Sofia.” Morgon said near her ear, she could feel his warm breath rolling down her neck.

She pushed back away from the voice, the chair she had forgotten she was sitting in toppled over. It was just like that night, hands reaching for her in the darkness, so much blood. She forgot to breathe and the stars lit up again, now motionless and dim, they looked a lot less like the night sky, but more like small embers that were lost in smoke. It wasn’t enough, fear had captured her thoughts, fear had consumed her. 

“Cedric!” 

A strong gust of wind and suddenly the illusion was lost and she was on the floor, her arms held up defensively, Morgon the wizard standing before her, offering a gnarled hand down to the girl on the floor. Cedric looked alarmed, turning the area above their heads into a sea of candles, turning the dining hall bright again.

“We are sorry Prince Hugo,” her mother explained breathlessly as a servant helped her off the floor “Sofia has always had a fear of the dark, she sometimes acts strangely.” Her mother sipped her wine before turning to her youngest daughter “Perhaps we should fetch the doctor?”

Sofia, her heart beating out of her chest, her fingers bunched up into the fabric, bolted from the room. Her feet weren’t moving fast enough for her, she had to get away from that sorcerer! She knew he had tampered with Cedric’s trick, there was no way her sorcerer would plunge her into darkness carelessly. He knew her fear of the dark, but if Morgon turned off the stars, did that mean he also knew about her fears?

“Princess!” A voice called and she turned back to see the handsome Prince Hugo in dashing blues exiting the dining hall. “Princess Sofia wait!”

“Prince Hugo, I really must apolog-”

“Your sorcerer does some pretty wild tricks,” he said walking up to her, grabbing one of her hands with both of his, trying to comfort her. “He must know of your fear of the dark though, he lives quite closely with the royal family. I wonder why he’d put you through something so miserable.”  
  
“Everyone makes mistakes,” she tittered nervously tugging her hand away from his, but he grabbed tighter “Even sorcerers.”

“My sorcerer doesn’t make any mistakes,” He leaned in closer “Neither do I, Princess.”

“Oh, well, that’s good to know, I really mu-”

“His mistake almost hurt you, I can’t let that slide.” He straightened up and puffed out his chest “No one hurts you when I’m around, I’ll protect you Princess Sofia!”

She bit back laughter, bowing her head to hide her smile. How could he ever hope to protect her when even Cedric couldn’t? 

“Protect her from _what_?” Cedric asked from behind them, tugging on the fabric of her dress and pulling her back away from the prince, relief flooded through her. “From you? Or your sorcerer?”  
  
“My sorcerer got up to save her!” Prince Hugo had fire in his eyes. “You scared her! She’s delica-”

“Your sorcerer has always been very...touchy feely when it comes to women, isn’t that right?” Cedric tugged on her dress again and pulled her back behind him, she complied eagerly. “Or perhaps you didn’t notice what he does in your castle?”

“Cedric,” warned Sofia, but that earned her a glare over his shoulder. He was very angry that his trick went sour and now he was getting dressed down by a royal. She was worried about what he would do.

“The Princess needs her rest now, you can continue wooing her tomorrow.” Cedric crossed his arms and she could see his fingers wrapped around his wand, it jutted out threateningly.

“I am a prince!” the other man replied, loud enough that his voice echoed off the walls, loud enough that the people still in the dining hall could hear. “I am a prince and you cannot speak to me in that manner.”

Cedric turned around to face her, he had a small smile playing at his lips as he ignored the Prince “Allow me to escort you, Princess Sofia.”

When they were two hallways over, and her nerves had calmed down she turned to him. She knew why he had come out to intervene between her and the prince. “Did you enjoy yourself there?”

“I did.” His eyes were twinkling with delight “It’s not every day you get to put a royal brat in their place.”

No one had ever defended her before, she was in awe. She was thankful for two things tonight, that he was happy to defend her, and that she was away from Prince Hugo. She wasn’t sure what he wanted from her aside from marriage. Each time she met him seemed more dangerous than the last.

“What happened to the stars?” She asked rounding the hall where her bedroom was.

He growled at the mention of his trick gone wrong “I cannot be sure, but of a few things I can be certain. That boy knows that he has a powerful sorcerer, and for some reason, they’re both after you.” 

Her stomach twisted into knots. She looked nervously at Cedric “Is it because I’m magical?” She whispered, afraid of being overheard.

He opened the door to her room, looking around to make sure they were alone before pushing her inside, following her. Cedric always looked striking, she realized, he was a flurry of purple fabric tonight. His hair was tied back elegantly into a low ponytail and his mouth was drawn into a thin line as he thought for a few seconds. Why was it that everyone in the castle overlooked him? Perhaps, because she knew he was a prince now he did look more regal than before, or maybe he had always been regal and she never noticed. 

She realized she was staring again and quickly looked away, changing the subject. “I don’t have time for Prince Hugo and his scary old man, what about the gypsies stealing people? What about Lucinda?”

“Don’t be daft, Princess,” This earned him a “hey!” in response but he ignored it “We have enough to deal with here with Morgon, he is not who he used to be. The Prince knows something about you that even we don’t know.” 

“Well if we’re not in the castle then it’s fine! We’ll just take a trip like last time down to the village!”

“I’m not taking you down to the village again, we’re not going to seek out the gypsies, and I will absolutely not visit the witch in the woods.”  
  
“Cedric…”

“No!”

“Will you stay with me a while longer?” She said quietly and he looked over at her “at least until my chest stops hurting.” Her heart was beating in triple time, but she was unsure if it was fear, or something new. Something involving the man who was leaning against the wall in her bedroom. Something about the first man who had ever seen her as something worth defending. Her heart leapt in her throat as their eyes met.

“I will stay until the hallway is clear, and not a moment longer.” He withdrew his wand “Let’s practice in the meantime.”

No, she insisted, it was fear, it had to be. A true princess did not acknowledge the alternative.


	13. Cards, Concocting

She did not come down for breakfast, and after lunch, she was having a row with her mother about her reluctance to come into any contact with the charming Prince Hugo. Baileywick was standing with Amber in her doorway as her mother demanded she saw the prince.

“It’s rude, Sofia. I did not raise you to insult our guests!” 

Sofia looked past her furious mother to Amber who had her arms crossed and a smile on her face. “Then tell him I’m sick, I don’t care!”

Her mother looked up and then turned around and marched out, bumping into Baileywick. Amber rushed up to her quickly, a smile on her face as she grabbed both her hands, squeezing them and squealing with delight “Thank you, dear sister, the more time with Prince Hugo for me!”

She wished she could tell Amber to stay away from the prince as well, but found herself unable to do so. She wanted some sort of silent revenge against the sister that seemed to love to spread rumors about her and Cedric. Amber hugged her and rushed off behind her mother and she could hear her sister’s whining voice down the hall.

“Mother, I don’t see why you waste your time with Sofia, she’s clearly made her choice.”

Sofia looked over at Baileywick who was still standing in the doorway. He was somewhere between shocked and amused. The royal advisor pulled out a deck from one of his breast pockets “Cards, princess?”

“He’s certainly interesting,” Baileywick said as they walked the spiral stairs up into the solarium “For once a prince seems to have taken a shine to you, instead of Princess Amber.”

“I don’t have a shine for him, so I wish he’d leave me alone.” Sofia grumbled, punctuating the last few words by hitting the steps particularly hard with her feet.

“Your parents will marry you off whether you have a shine for him or not. Prince Hugo has neighboring lands, so it’s better to become friends before you’re forced to become husband and wife.”

“Neighboring lands where?” Sofia pushed open the doors to the solarium to see that it was blissfully empty as always.

“To the North, you should know, the land was divvied up after The Last War.” 

Her eyes narrowed, but she said nothing. It seemed that Baileywick knew more about the war than he had hinted at before, and it was better to let him reveal his secrets over time than ask outright. She wondered when she had gotten so coy.

“Doesn’t that mean that Prince Hugo’s country helped us in the war? Why would a marriage strengthen?”

“There have been some strange rumors about his country as of late, Princess, economic relationships are strained between Enchancia and Ostrana.”  
  
“Why?”

“We exchange something we have a lot of for something they don’t have much of, and for some reason, they’ve stopped buying.”

She thought back to Mr. Allenstadt complaining about crops in the village “Grain?”

“You really never did pay attention in classes, Enchancia’ major export to Ostrana is precious minerals.”

She was not surprised, a country with a powerful sorcerer in need of minerals was not strange at all. She thought back to the conversation she had with Cedric about how mages derived their magic from precious gems. But why would he need so many? 

Baileywick tossed a two of hearts on the table just as the doors flung open to reveal an annoyed looking Cedric. His arms crossed, his nose tilted up, and his tone less than kind “ _ Princess _ ,” he stressed her title, but she was used to his venom “I see you forgot about our meeting this afternoon.”

Sofia opened her mouth to respond, but Baileywick gave her a smile, collecting the cards and beginning to shuffle. She shut her mouth and gave a smile in return.

“Come play cards with us Cedric,” Baileywick beckoned to the irritated sorcerer “a meeting can wait.” 

He sent a glare to Sofia, but sat down in an unoccupied chair, he looked worse for wear today. In drab grey robes that made him look paler than usual, she was worried he didn’t sleep much last night. “Baileywick,” Sofia yawned looking away from the other man at the table “Could you get some tea sandwiches brought up to us?” 

Baileywick, excited by the fact that for once the Princess seemed to want to play cards instead of shutting herself up with the sorcerer, got up and went to find the closest servant to fetch them food. 

“I have learned some troubling things recently.” She began, studying the intricate vine designs on the back of each playing card, tracing them with her finger. She didn’t dare look up at him. “Abou-”

“I know,” Cedric said looking over at the door that had just shut “keep your mouth shut.”

She sat back into her chair, smoothing her hands over the fabric. She realized they probably weren’t alone. “Right then, after this?”

He nodded and looked back at her, gesturing to the table and switching to a lighter subject “I hate cards, they’re so pointless.”

“They’re fun, you know, not everything has an end goal.” She mused re-arranging the cards in her hand. 

Baileywick re-entered the solarium with a tray full of perfectly triangular sandwiches and was followed by a maid carrying tea. Her eyes brightened up at the plate full of food but then saw another following them. Prince Hugo, alone, his smile was dazzling in the afternoon sun and she felt Cedric tense up next to her.

“I brought you a visitor, Princess.”

Her heart plummeted. Her refuge of the solarium was breached. Prince Hugo’s smile became almost sinister the longer he held it. He gave a low bow and Cedric stood up abruptly, banging his hip on the table, scattering the neat pile of cards. She did the same, fisting her hands into the fabric of her dress to hide her nerves. She felt like a cornered animal, her heartbeat racing. She hated the Prince, she  _ hated _ him because he was just like every other royal, unnervingly perfect and only using her as a means to an end, just like every other royal trying to get with Amber.

His boots clicked off the floor as he approached them, extending his hand towards her. She sat down as quickly as she stood up, yanking on Cedric’s robes to make him sit with her. 

“Your mother said you were feeling unwell this morning, but alas, some sunlight seems to be doing well for your complexion.” Prince Hugo said, sitting down across from her, brushing her fingers with his as he picked up cards.

She recoiled. “Yes, well-”

Cedric put his cards down on the table. “I mu-”

Sofia groped under the table for his leg and dug her fingers into his thigh, sending him a pleading look. He hissed and shot her a look and opened his mouth to retort and but the Prince got there first 

“Am I...interrupting something?”

“Not at all,” Baileywick continued pulling out a chair for the prince who seated himself on the other end of the princess. “We were just playing some cards.”

“I  _ adore _ cards.” He flashed a smile at Sofia who smiled politely back at him.

She was fuming inside. There was no escaping the prince as long as he was within the castle walls. She was impatient to ask about Scyvyas’ lands, but more importantly, she had a feeling that the old sorcerer that was roaming the halls had something to do with the economic strains between the two countries. She knew it had to be him. Why else would he need so many precious minerals? He surely wasn’t wearing them.

A few hours of polite laughter and smiles, Cedric managed to extricate the both of them from the endless card game and down into his laboratory where she rocked side to side on his stool watching him pace in front of the window. “I didn’t even know we exported minerals.”

He looked over at her “Probably the old mines on the outskirts of Scyvyas, but if they stopped buying, why is that a big problem for the two countries?”

“Do these minerals have much use, aside from magic?”

“Decor, rare gemstones and such are made from them, your tiara and rings have all sorts of gems found in those mines.” He looked over at the princess. “Like I said they’re the best conductors for magic, but not many mages are left, not in Ostrana. So it must be decoration.”

She realized she had never seen Prince Hugo with jewelry on, no rings, no crown, no pins or anything gaudy. “I don’t know much about Prince Hugo’s country, but he spends most of his time away from home, here in Enchancia, he has a summer home not too far from the castle.”

“Then there must be something keeping him here.” Cedric said stopping at the window, overlooking the gate for a few moments. “You’re right on one thing Princess.”

“I never thought you’d admit I was right.”

“There’s something going on with those gemstones and Morgon, and I fear if we wait too much longer, he’s not going to just stop at messing up my party tricks.”

Excitement bubbled up inside her and she feared she would burst. “Then the mines?” She bounced off her chair.

“I will need you to even gain access to the mines to look around, no one can refuse royalty, so yes, the mines.”

“Do you think they’ll have apopholyte there too?”

“I highly doubt it.”

He didn’t say no, so she would take a lot of doubt than nothing at all.


	14. A Lizard, A Leige

The mines were on the very outskirts of the country, Cedric explained that they used to belong to Scyvyas. “It was a crucial point in the war,” he said as their carriage bounced over the dirt road “When the mines were lost, our power was cut off. Our armies were without food, and we starved.”

“Why stones,” she said swishing his wand, now glowing orange with her small concentration of magical energy “Why are they so important?”

“Conductive, and they are imbued with the natural mana of the earth, Leonard and the forest sprites were correct in that the earth has it’s own mana to draw from, however, the whole earth isn’t very portable, and for spellwork you need more than just dirt and sticks and a hope that you’re near a leyline of magic.”

“Can you feel them?” She put her hands up in the air as if the leylines would suddenly materialize under her fingertips now that she knew about them.

He let out a short bark of laughter and it surprised her, she had never heard him laugh before. She found herself smiling, even if his amusement was at her expense.

“Leylines are just mines, streaks of mana concentrated far beneath the earth. You will feel it when we get to the mines.”

“What happens when you don’t have any minerals to draw from?”

“You draw from yourself, you, and I, your advisor, and your family, all have mana within us, but it takes energy, and if you use too much, you’ll die.” He peeked out the window of the carriage.

“Cedric,” She said quietly “Is that what people did? Is that why there were so many casualties in The Last War?”

“When you need to protect your home, you’ll do anything.” He looked back at her “Even sell yourself.”

Every time they delved into Cedric’s past life, she felt a pang of remorse. She couldn’t imagine ever having to sell herself for her country, even faced with just marrying seemed like a hopeless situation. However if Cedric sold himself to her family, had Morgon done the same? “What about Morgon? Did he sell himself?”

“He was very close to me, a high ranking member of the court, but I doubt he sold himself to Prince Hugo as I did to your family. There was no need.”

“Then? He-”

Cedric cut her off. “Which is  _ why _ I am so concerned that he has suddenly resurfaced, what is a free man doing playing jester to that Prince?”

“What is anyone doing with that Prince?” She huffed “I hate him.”

“That, I am well aware of.”

She handed his wand back to him and he slipped it back up his sleeve without a second thought “You’ve gotten very good at channeling your energy, Princess.” 

His compliment was unexpected and her smile was brilliant. No matter how many times the prince told her she was beautiful, nothing made her quite as warm as his offhand comment. She  _ was _ good at channeling her energy now!

He looked over at her quickly before looking away. “Get some sleep, silly girl.”

She was no longer stupid, and with that, she nestled back into the seat of her carriage and shut her eyes. After such an early morning, she could afford some sleep. Then she remembered what happened the last time she slept in a carriage and bolted upright.

“Oh! But wh-”

“I am better prepared for bandits, don’t concern yourself.”

She couldn’t sleep very well, the last time she had fallen asleep in the carriage she had woken up confused and her coachmen had turned into mice. She wasn’t going to make the same mistake twice. She woke up with a start, causing Cedric to do the same “What is it now?”

“I didn’t mean to fall asleep, what happened?”

“Nothing, we’re getting close now, only a few more hours, do you feel it yet?” He gestured to her hands that were clasped on her lap.

“No-”

“Close your eyes, and feel it.”

She huffed in frustration before closing her eyes again, holding her hands out in front of her, her fingers splayed. “I don’t feel anything. Oh!”

Gently, like sunlight, she felt warmth ghost her fingertips, prickling on the edges of her vision like when she squeezed her eyes shut tightly. She gasped in surprise, opening her eyes slowly to Cedric who looked amused at her wonder. 

“You felt it then, the mana of the mines?”

“It’s like a warm summer day,” she said flexing her fingers again “When we get closer, will it be hot?”  
  
“No, I don’t think it ever was hot.” He said concentrating for a few minutes as if he was trying to remember “Not uncomfortably at least.”

It  _ was _ hot though, she began to fan herself as she hopped out of the carriage. Cedric was already sweating and trying to find any sign of life aside from them. The quarry was huge and there was only one path that wound down into glittering caves. Aside from the horses, there was no one.

“I thought you said  _ this _ was the major export of Enchancia? There’s no one here!” Cedric said toeing a rock. 

“So says Baileywick! This is the only mineral mine I found on the map he gave me.” She had lied to Baileywick just to get that map, the very thought of lying to him made her queasy, but he seemed to enjoy the fact that she was interested in the country’s history, so he found it for her. 

“The reason Prince Hugo keeps hanging around the castle is due to economic tensions, so I’m going to resolve them.” She said before hiking up her overly ornate dress, that Cedric insisted she wear because it made her look as royal as could be, and starting down the dirt path into the quarry 

“Princess!” Cedric called behind her and started rushing down the path to meet her “It is not your job to resolve economic tensions between countries! I will go alone to inspect the mines, and you will wait near the carriage.”  
  
“It’s going to be my job, Cedric, either through marriage or through mines. So we’re going together. If I can avoid my fate as Princess Hugo by talking to some miners, then I’m going to talk to them!”

There had been miners here, but it seemed like it had been a very long time since the equipment, hammers, picks, and buckets, had been used. A wind picked up some dust and she heard buckets roll around in the dirt. He kicked at a broken wooden bucket that rolled in his path and it echoed into the cave. “Are you sure that they’re not buying? Because it looks like we’re not supplying.”

“Maybe they’re out to lunch or something?” Sofia said her fingers running over a wall that was littered in diamonds, the sunlight causing rainbows to appear on her dress. 

On the wall, there were scratches that reminded her of a star chart, and as she stepped back away from the cavern wall, she could see that it  _ was _ some kind of star chart. Circles and dots, connected by thin white lines carved into the stones, a large constellation of triangles inside a circle. She saw that a line from one of the dots extended deeper into the cave. Maybe it would lead to more star charts? More constellations?

“The whole quarry? I doubt...where are you going? Sofia! Where are you going?”

“There are carvings here,” She explained patiently  “There’s probably people inside.” 

She let her fingers rest on the line, walking close to the wall as she stepped inside the cave.  She was sweating, her hair was sticking to her face, her layers of extravagant clothing that made her appear royal seemed to be made of fire and suffocated her. Her patience was wearing thin. Where did he  _ think _ she was going?

The caves were encrusted in jewels, they jutted out from every angle, glimmering off the light of his wand. She looked very much like she belonged in her coronation outfit. It was interesting to see them lining the walls. There were more jewels here than there were in all of the treasury, she was sure. He trailed behind her, his steps matched her own. She had to fix this economic problem before the problem became a marriage.

A loud noise stopped them both and she turned back to Cedric to see that they were not alone. A crowd of people in tattered grey robes now blocked their only exit.

“Gypsies, in the caves.” Cedric grabbed her and pulled her towards him, lowering his wand slightly. “You were right after all.”

“Prince Cedric, could it be you?” One of them stepped forward, a man who looked older than Baileywick pulled down his hood and walked up to the sorcerer who pushed Sofia behind him.

“I am no longer known by that title.” Cedric replied, “and you would do best not to mention it.”

Like grass bends to the wind, the people bent to his words, a sea of grey cloth now at half the height they were before. She realized these must be the people of Scyvyas, acknowledging that their old ruler was still alive. Her fear abated a little and she tried to step back from Cedric thinking that danger had passed. He apparently did not think so, because he had a vicelike grip on her arm.

“Prince Cedric,” The old man said to the floor, still kneeling before the absent prince “You have come just like he said you would.”

“He who?” piped up Sofia from behind the sorcerer.

“Keep your mouth shut,” hissed Cedric. He cleared his throat and repeated her question clearly. “He who?”

She bit her tongue, she had asked a valid question.

“He follows you even now in your disgrace, Morgon the Wise.”

_ Morgon the Wise _ she scoffed, did he made up his own title and told these people to use it? What avarice! Morgon the  _ Weird _ was more accurate and she snorted behind him at her own joke.

Cedric looked back at her quickly, giving her a glare that told her to behave. “When did this wise old man tell you that I was coming?”

“At least one moon ago, your majesty.”

Her eyes widened and realized that Prince Hugo had started coming to the castle more frequently at the same time. Her marriage was a ploy, the economic strain was a farce. Cedric seemed as surprised as her but could she trust him?   
  
“I thought no wizard could see the future, Cedr-stop it! Let go!”

Two sets of strong arms grabbed her by her shoulders and violently yanked her away from her sorcerer. Cedric spun around and tried desperately to grab the princess again. She dug her heels into the ground, but she was no match for the two strong men who were pulling her deeper into the cavern. Her cries of protest echoed in the cave, but no one made a move to help her.

The fragile old man who was kneeling before him stood up and put his hand on the Sorcerer’s shoulder. “You are free now from your imprisonment. Please, your majesty, lead us to victory.”

They were dragging her further into the caves, further into the darkness, she struggled to get free but the men who carried her seemed to be giants. “Cedric! Lead them to put me down! Hey! Stop!”

“Let her go, I demand it.” Cedric looked panicked, his knuckles were white around his wand as he fought to divide his attention between Sofia and the gypsies who were murmuring his praise.

“Morgon told us about the spell that bound you to obey her, but you’re safe with us. We will dispose of this royal and break their hold on you. Everything that was theirs is ours again, the royals of Enchancia will pay for what they have done.”  
  
There were jeers from the hooded crowd behind him and Cedric began to walk quickly towards the Princess who was demanding that she was let down. “There is no spell, don’t you dare harm her! Sofia!”

The deeper in the cave they went, the hotter it seemed to get. Sweat was trickling down her face and the air began to pop and spark as her frustration and anger rose. The cavern lit as her fury increased.

“Let go!” She squealed and swung her legs wildly, but as soon as she saw Cedric withdraw his wand the floor fell out from underneath her. She didn’t scream, air rushed past her, and then: nothing.

She woke up again gasping for air, she felt like she had drowned, but there was no water, there was nothing but a single star above her. 

“Sofia?” Cedric sounded miles away, the star moved a little, she reached for it.

“Sofia, answer me!” 

Her voice came out somewhere between a squeak and a whisper. She couldn’t breathe, the darkness pressed in on her and was suffocating her.

There were murmurs and the sound of wind but she couldn’t move, she thought she was bound, but even if her arms felt like they weighed a thousand pounds they could move a little. She would focus on breathing and the star that shone overhead.

“Princess Sofia!”

She cried out again, louder now. It was a pitiful whine and gasped for air. The star disappeared and she was plunged into darkness. Fear clutched at her heart and made her chest tight. Maybe she had died? She rolled over and felt sticks beneath her, clattering against stone as she moved. Death was painful.

Suddenly a shower of light rained down on her, the stars fell and bounced off the sides of the walls and she suddenly could see where she was, and wished she hadn’t. As the stars began to litter the floor around her, illuminating a very large sleeping lizard, and the sticks were not sticks at all. She was laying in piles of ashen bones. She couldn’t scream, she just stared in horror, her arms that weighed a thousand pounds flew up quickly to cover her mouth. Princess Sofia, the glittering jewel of Enchancia, lay very still and very quiet in a pit with something she thought was only made up. Ashen grey with heavy hot breath like wind, she lay not six feet away from a sleeping dragon.

She knew they had intended for her to hit it and wake it up so she would have died quickly, but she had landed beside it through sheer luck. Bones broke her fall, and the dragon remained asleep. She tore her eyes away from the dragon, looking up to try and figure a way out. The star reappeared and she realized it must be Cedric trying to find her. She was here in a bed of bones and small marbles of light, waiting for her death. At least it wouldn’t be dark, at least it wasn’t like last time.

“I have  _ not _ been cursed. Morgon lied. What...A dragon?” She heard him say, his voice sounded so far away. A whisper that grew fainter when the dragon exhaled.

She felt hot tears streaming down her face as she tried to roll herself away from the creature. Her body ached, it felt like she had been stabbed in the back. The bones made hollow noises as they scattered around her, they jabbed her through her clothing or broke apart. Every noise sounded louder than a gunshot, her eyes kept darting to see if the dragon woke up. Not yet, it’s heavy eyelids remained shut, it’s breathing even and deep. Her fingers wrapped around a crystal that jutted out from the wall, and it woke up, emitting a soft glow that began to streak up the wall from one crystal to the next. She pulled herself up shakily, leaning her head back against the cool stone and trying to compose herself enough to think of how to get out of such a situation.

Dragons were a myth as far as she was concerned. They usually kept princesses captive, ate gems, burnt villages, and were always slayed by a knight. However, at the bottom of this pit, there were no knights, and she was starting to think she might have crushed the remains of the miners. This dragon, this huge lizard, was very, very real. She couldn’t ask Cedric for help, she was alone. 

She could see human fingernails jutting out of the walls, some gems were sticky with a brown substance that she didn’t want to think about. She began to walk around the back of the dragon, believing that maybe if she was out of its sight, she might not be on the menu. The light orbs that were smaller than peas made it difficult to walk as they all rolled under foot, her balance already shaky by her fall into the dragon’s den.

Sofia had made it halfway around the dragon when there was another loud noise overhead and she looked up to see huge rocks hurtling down towards the dragon. One rock sliced her sleeve open. A shout from an outraged Cedric and then a growl of annoyance from the sleeping beast next to her.

Except it was no longer sleeping. One green eye was looking at her, and the beast began to move, swiveling its head towards her. The dragon stretched like a cat who had been caught sunbathing, the orbs rolling off his body and falling into the sea of light beneath them. 

She began to run around the edge of the cave, tripping over bones, the dragon seemed to have little interest in her and plenty of interest in itself. It inspected where the rocks had hit it, a forked tongue running over scales to try and soothe new wounds. 

Sofia tried to make little noise, hoping the gigantic lizard hadn’t seen her but it had. In his cramped den, he turned around and faced the Princes who was clambering over a rock she had run into. “You are the one who hit me?”

Its voice between a hiss and a rumble sounded otherworldly as it reverberated in the den. Dragons did not talk in books, but this dragon did.

Sofia looked up at the sky and heard shouting, but then leveled her eyes on the dragon and gestured to her bleeding arm. Princesses handled things diplomatically, perhaps dragons did too. “What hit you hit me.”

The dragon huffed and she saw its nostrils glow orange. She was sure her heart had stopped beating. Her options were slim in this pit: it was either talk the dragon out of eating her or be eaten. She didn’t know how to fight. She couldn’t use magic like Cedric. All she had was some etiquette lessons and a ripped dress. 

It raised itself up to its full height, at least six times taller than herself, it’s neck craning to the opening of the cavern and then a great plume of fire emitted from its mouth, spreading out over the roof of the cave, the stones went from a dull clearness to glowing white as they began to melt, liquid rock began to fall around her, hissing as it hit the ground, smoke rising and making her eyes water. She pressed herself up against the wall and the dragon fell back down again with a resounding thud. The sea of light bounced around with it, settling after a few moments, they sounded like wind chimes.

“They send me dinner but then they hit me? You must have hit me.” The dragon nudged her with its snout causing her to fall over, her dress beginning to burn and melt around his prodding nose.

This was her coronation gown, she watched it fall to piece around her feet. “I’m a princess, I am not so rude as to hit someone while they’re sleeping.”

“I do not care for the laws of men.” The dragon’s tail came up and swept her off her feet, she fell with a thud. “A princess means nothing.”

This was it, she realized, she was going to die. Diplomacy gave way to irrationality, and she stamped her foot. A true princess would throw a fit, just like Amber. “Then why do you stay down here?” Her voice was getting shrill “Why do you get dirty miners and scraps when they feast? I thought dragons were more fearsome than this, and instead, they’re just lazy!”

She waited for death, hoping it was quick, but nothing came.

“They are keeping food from me?” The dragon asked, suddenly losing interest in the girl in his den. “There is more?”

She didn’t respond and instead tried to stop herself from crying before she died, she wanted to look pretty in death, and her mother always told her she was an ugly crier. A thought occurred to her.

“If you help me, I will show you.” She offered, gesturing to the top of the cave.

If she could just get back to Cedric he would be able to dispose of the dragon she was sure of it. Were dragons smart? She hoped not. 

The dragon rumbled and grabbed her tightly, crawling up the wall, it’s huge wings spreading out behind them. It had obviously never held a person before other than to kill them because she was sure that she was going to be crushed.

Screaming was much louder in the cave, as the gypsies who lived there came face to face with the beast they had thought they tamed. The dragon huffed “You are correct, there  _ is _ more.”

She was dropped onto the cavern floor and the dragon’s tail smacked her again as he began to saunter towards the crowd of people. She was battered and bleeding, wishing she had never come here in the first place. Her body hurt, but Sofia rolled over to see Cedric facing the dragon, his eyes darting from the creature to Sofia who was lying behind it. 

He looked back at the gypsies, the people of Scyvyas who had waited for their ruler and then back at her. She knew he would make the choice with ease. His people mattered more than a princess he hated. 

She sighed and closed her eyes, wondering if she would be able to get up. Her body hurt and she was so tired. So much for knights in shining armor saving princesses from dragons. If she was a real princess like Amber, then she’d have at least six waiting to save her. A painful exhale, if she was a real princess, she wouldn’t be here in the first place.

“Move,” hissed Cedric “get up and  _ move _ dammit.”

Her eyes flew open, and there was no knight, but a very irate wizard who was shaking her awake. “The gypsies, help them, they’ll know about the rock.”

She could give two hoots about her stupid stone right now, but she didn’t want them to die either. “Dammit Sofia! Now is not the time.”  
  
She grabbed onto him, hissing as she realized it was her cut arm. “Don’t be stupid Cedric, keep your promise to me and _help them_. You cannot neglect them!”

He ripped out of her grasp, seething and turned on the great lumbering lizard who was skulking out of the cave, looking for the food that had now fled. She sighed and looked up at the diamonds which had cooled to black now. A few flashes of blinding white light and she was out cold.


	15. Injuries, Inopportune Moments

She woke up still in the cave, the sun had set, leaving them plunged into darkness. The orbs that Cedric had rained on her emitting an eerie glow from the depths of the cavern. A cold wind blew hair up and away from her face. Sofia rolled over, her body stiff. Towards the entrance of the cave soft moonlight fell on a body. She got to her knees, scraping against the rock floor through the remains of her dress. 

“Cedric,” she croaked, wondering if the body was Cedric’s at all, but instinctively she knew. “Cedric wake up.”

The crawl seemed to take ages, and in her frustration, her vision was blurry with tears. Her body ached, her knees and elbows stung. The walls of the cavern began to glow softly as if behind them were candles shining through the diamonds. She recognized his royal purple robes now, lying in a heap, his hand over a metal bowl that reminded her of dinner. She tugged on his robes, her hands were slick with her own blood from the cut on her arm.

“Cedric, please wake up.” She was crying, yanking on his robe with all the strength she could muster, he barely moved. crawling forward to see his face before collapsing next to him.

She closed her eyes and felt his hot breath hitting her face. He was alive, just sleeping, or maybe wounded, she wasn’t sure.

“Sofia?” He coughed, his voice was barely a hoarse whisper “...okay?”

Her hand came up to his shoulder and pushed on him weakly. How could she be so worried? Of course, he was fine. “Fine.”

“You’re crying.”

“You wouldn’t listen to me.”

He chuckled and nudged her. “You’re making the cave glow, stop.”

The walls didn’t dim but instead grew brighter at the revelation that  _ she _ was controlling it. “I’m so tired Cedric, not even after equestrian lessons did I hurt this much. I want to go home.” 

“I’m not sure if I can move.” He wheezed and she heard the metal bowl scrape against the rock as he shifted on the ground “Can you?”

“Not sure.” She admitted moving her head to look at the entrance that was not so far away. “Did you save them?”

“I did.”

Her sigh of relief turned into coughing and she felt his warm hand over her chest. “I don’t have enough energy left in me to heal you, Sofia.” A dim blue glow flickered between his fingers, a surge of warmth, and then cold again. He sighed in frustration.

She placed her hand over his own. “I know, it’s fine, I know.” 

This had happened once before. That was the first and only time she would watch people die for her when she was kidnapped, and Cedric killed men with an angry swish of his own wand. They fell before her, bleeding all over her feet, and he looked horrified that he had done it. When it was dark, she could hear them dying all over again. She could feel them grabbing her, hands, and then  _ fire _ . 

She promised him that she would never make him kill again. 

He promised he would never kill another.

Sofia got to her feet unsteadily, bent over and looking down at the metal bowl he was holding on to. The world tilted, but she fought back, holding herself upright. “What is that?”

“It’s the dragon. You can’t kill them with magic, so I shrank it.”

Laughing hurt, one laugh and then one cough as she offered her hand down to Cedric. “He wasn’t that bright, he said that I hurt him.”

“He  _ said _ that you hurt him?” Cedric got on all fours below her, not bothering to take her hand, turning the bowl over to reveal a frozen lizard, about as big as her hand, sleeping in a small ball. He scooped it up into the frosted bowl and stood up with her, hissing in pain.

“He did,” she said as they exited the cave “I didn’t know dragons talk.”  
  
“They don’t.” He paused for a second “At least I think they don’t.”

She stopped as they exited, bent over and dizzy as the early morning sunlight beat down on them. She swore she could hear the voices of the gypsies, whispering and taunting the two of them from deep within the caves. Her hair blew in the wind, and she looked over to see Cedric staring into the maw of the cave, his wand at the ready. She tensed up in fear, would they come and attack her again? She couldn’t survive. Tears pricked her eyes.

“Just the wind, Princess.” Cedric put his arm around her “They all fled, we’re safe.”

The coachmen were standing awkwardly with a coach and no horses, they looked slightly worse for wear and Sofia gave them weary smile. “The gypsies took the horses?”

They nodded, trying to take in the charred princess and the beaten sorcerer. “Don’t stand there as if your brain has left you, one of you, find new horses.  _ Immediately _ .” 

Stunned and slightly frightened, one of them started off back into the woods, leaving the other man to suddenly rush to open the door for them to the abandoned coach. 

Sofia looked at him pleadingly, “Please just... don't look for a second.” The coachman looked away as she crawled into the carriage, tossing herself on a bench and making a sad whining noise as her whole body protested.

“Cedric,” she moaned “my father is going to kill us.”

“We survived a dragon today, your father isn’t going to be much worse, Princess.”

* * *

 

 

“We can’t go in the castle like this,” she said a day later as they got closer to the village “We have to stop at Lucinda’s or Jade’s and patch ourselves up.” The dragon made a tiny roar from a small clear jar that it was currently trapped inside.

Cedric rattled the jar and irritated the small creature even more and she snatched it away from him. “Don’t be rude, Cedric.”

After a bit more whining about their state of dress, and her barely healed wounds Cedric conceded to the princess about stopping by the witch in the woods, reasoning that it was safer to go to a witch, than the town gossip. Lucinda, however, was the only one in the cabin, and she looked terrified that the Princess had bothered to stop by.

“Lucy, can we come in?” She asked the crack in the door and there was a shuddering breath in response.

“No, I’m sorry, not you, not you.” Her voice was hoarse and the door was rattling. “Mama told me before I left not to talk to you, Sofia.”

“Where did your mother go then, Lucinda?” Sofia kicked one of her heeled boots in the door jamb, propping it open. “Has she been missing for very long?”

“She said it was finally our time, and went to visit uncle, Sofia, I really must go.”

Sofia, tired of being tired, and tired of being afraid of her father finding out that she had been missing for almost a week now slammed her entire body into the door, hissing as new bruises formed over old ones and pushing her friend out onto the floor of the smoky cabin. It was sickeningly hot and she almost choked on the air when she walked in.

“Right then,” Sofia said shifting the dragon jar into her non-injured arm. “Lucinda, you need to tell me what happened while we wait for the dressmaker. Leave the door open! I can barely see!”

Cedric paused and did as she wished. Lucy looked terrified that Sofia got in, and slowly sank down by the roaring fire, Cedric banished the fumes from the cabin and sat in the other chair near the fire. He began to work on his own wounds as the Princess waited for an explanation.

“Mama’s been gone for over a week. People have come round the cabin asking for her, they aren’t nice people Sofia! They told me it was finally our time. They all wear hoods so I can’t see their faces! Mama said  _ no one _ was supposed to come in here, not even you! They ratt-”

“Time for what?” Sofia interrupted looking out the windows to see if the people she spoke of were truly just waiting for them outside and they somehow missed them.

“That’s just it! I don’t know, it’s not time for the ball, that’s not for another two weeks!” Lucinda hugged herself, her eyes darting towards the sorcerer before going back to Sofia “They come every night, but they don’t get in. I think they want to kill me Sofia!” Lucinda wailed and Cedric rolled his eyes. 

“They won’t get you, not while Cedric is here.” She soothed her friend but it wasn’t working. There was another wail and Cedric moved away from her to sit next to Sofia. 

“What do they want?” sniffed Lucy “Why me?”

“More likely they are looking for your mother, not you, which is why she left,” Cedric said grabbing Sofia’s arm and undoing the makeshift bandage, a piece of his dirty white shirt, now a dark red.

“You think?” Lucy wiped her eyes on the sleeve of her brown dress “They don’t want to kill me?”

“No, I have a suspicion on why they are looking for her now, the same reason they have been waiting for me.” 

“Ow!” Cedric was a little too rough on her and she yanked her arm away but instead bumped jar the dragon was in, getting an irritated roar and then a puff of smoke out of the holes on the lid. 

“Oh, Sofia I’m so sorry I didn’t let you in,” Lucinda said with a heavy sigh “It’s just been so  _ strange _ lately being in the cabin by myself, I couldn’t trust anyone!” 

Sofia felt an icy coldness on her arm and looked down to see her wound sealing itself up, the skin knitting itself back together neatly, leaving only dried blood in its wake. Magic was marvelous. She wondered if she would ever be able to do magic like Cedric. She could make things glow, and sometimes make them warm, but never something so complicated.

Cedric looked over at Lucinda and then back at Sofia. “Get her to leave, we have to heal your  _ other _ wounds.” 

Lucinda looked alarmed by the sorcerer’s words and looked at her best friend nervously “What other wounds?”

“Lucinda,” Sofia looked over at the door “If you would check to see if the tailor might have gotten lost?”

Cedric was apt at her corsetting, his fingers, unlike last time he tore her out of clothing, were deft and gentle, knowing that the princess felt everything. 

She had never been on the receiving end of his gentle fingers before and found herself waiting eagerly for the next touch, the next ghost of touch over the lacing. No man had ever undressed her but Cedric, and she wondered if any other man would be as gentle and patient as him. 

“How many times have I gotten to undress a princess?”

“Don’t be lewd, Cedric.” She snapped, wondering if he read her mind again.

Her bad mood was on the account that she was in pain, from the moment that she left the cave, she could barely walk and breathing hurt. Her whole body ached and she could barely stay awake.

The corset loosened and like she had lost all the bones holding her upright she collapsed on the bed, making a strangled cry as she bent awkwardly. “If it’s not broken, it’s very close.” He sighed “You’re always more trouble than you’re worth, you know?”

She felt him move her legs onto the bed and she was now face down, her head turned so she could watch the dragon pace around its jar, making tiny cries and puffs of smoke. There was a sharp pain and then nothing at all, an icy coldness that seeped through her skin and into her blood. Her teeth chattered and her fingers curled up in an attempt to warm herself, but she knew that this coldness was the price you paid.  It started in her stomach and worked it’s way up, her eyes squeezing shut as it came closer and closer to her heart.

“Right inside, Mister Bouland.” She heard Lucinda say cheerfully 

Cedric tried to get off her but not fast enough, and so there they were, to the eyes of the world, a sorcerer straddling a princess that was half naked in a cabin in the woods. Sofia shrieked but was unable to move and Cedric hit the floor with an inelegant thump. 

He popped up again as quickly as he fell off of her, brandishing his wand. “Out! The both of you!” He yelled, knocking the dragon over earning another cry from the small creature. 

There was a squeal from Lucinda but the tailor, who had been close to the royal family since she was born, started towards the two of them, his scissors held like a dagger, only stopping when he saw the exposed back of the princess.

“My god, what have you done to her?” He sounded terrified.

She reached down and righted the dragon’s jar, giving a pleading look to Cedric. “I am not in the mood to explain our business to you, tailor. Both of you out! I need to finish my work.”

“Not likely,  _ sorcerer _ . I know your type, are you going to kill-”

Sofia, who was flushed red in embarrassment spoke up “He didn’t hurt me! I did this to myself, quit letting your prejudice cloud your judgment. Do as he says, stand outside until I am ready for you!”

“Yes, your highness.”  
  
“Sorry, Sofia.”

Silence fell over the cabin once more. Sofia looked over at Cedric who was undressing, hanging his dirty purple robes on a nearby chair before looking back at Sofia. He stood before her all lithe muscle, half a sleeve missing from his shirt, the black circles seemed to fade against his ashen skin “They will talk, you know.”

“Let them, we know we’re innocent.” Sofia huffed and turned her head back into the pillows. She didn’t like the feeling Cedric gave her, a heat without touching, a longing that she never wished she experienced. Any feeling for him was impossible. She was a princess.

He was quicker this time, ignoring her yelp of surprise as the icy coldness of his healing spread over her chest and she swore her heart stopped beating for a minute as he continued upwards. His fingers stopped at the back of her neck, resting momentarily as she shivered underneath his touch.

“It’s cold, Cedric.” She said, her teeth chattering, her whole body shivering.

“Relax.” He whispered soothingly “Let it work through you.”

The minutes felt infinitely longer, as her blood ran cold through her, her eyes closing as she let her tiredness overtake her. She liked him when he was kind to her, the rare occasion that it was.

“Why do you think Morgon was meddling with the gypsies in the cave?” She mumbled into the pillows.

“I believe it has some connection with the hooded men that have been by here,” Cedric said sitting back down in the chair with the dragon jar in his lap, holding it up to inspect it. “But I am just as in the dark as you are this time.”

When she woke up, the tailor was waiting impatiently at her bedside, Cedric was gone, and Lucy was cooking something nondescript in the far side of the cabin.

“You burnt your coronation gown, I see?” The old man fiddled with the fabric off to the side. “Where on earth were you?”

“A dragon, it was a stupid thing to wear to see a dragon.” She sat up and looked around, the tailor seemed to know who she was looking for.

“He went out, I’m sure he’ll be back soon.”

The tailor stood her up and began to undress her, his face contorted in pain as he touched the remains of the dress that had been lovingly crafted for her. “I’m sorry,” she said as he fingered the singed edges of the remains of the skirt. “It was my favorite gown.”

“You just need something to wear back to the castle?” He ignored her.

“Yes, just a day dress or something, just something that isn’t burnt.” She looked down at her own dress “Nothing fancy.”

“I can get you something tomorrow morning.” He said folding the remains of the dress in his arms “Not any sooner than that.”

She sighed, that wasn’t as fast as she wanted, but she supposed another day wouldn’t hurt since she had been gone so long already. That left her in only a shift underdress that was also partly singed, exposing her legs to the cold. The tailor handed her a new cotton nightgown. 

“This will keep you until tomorrow, princess. Try not to burn this one?”

“I doubt I’ll run into any trouble tonight, thank you.” She replied haughtily. She hated that everyone always insinuated she was a trouble maker. She didn’t look for trouble, it found her.

Her dragon was sat on the nightstand, staring at her intently. “I am sorry that we’re keeping you in a jar, Cedric says you’re dangerous.”

He didn’t speak to her as he did before but instead ignored her, turning around so his back was facing her, and falling asleep.


End file.
